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POETICAL SERMONS 

INCLUDING THE 

BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH 



BY 
WILLIAM E. DAVENPORT 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK & LONDON 

Z\K IknicI^erbocUcr press 

1897 



^^^ 0^^\Ct OF '"'^^SP 

U : / ^ 1897 
TWO C'jritS HECEIVED 



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1237 

Copyright, 1897 



WILLIAM E. DAVENPORT 

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London 



Ube TRntcI;erbocf!er press, mew IL'ort? 



CONTENTS. 



To You I 

The Ballad of Plymouth Church ... 4 

University Endowment 31 

Christian Riches 33 

The Poet's Part 37 

The Everlasting Gospel 40 

Repent 45 

Reform in the City 49 

SoNSHiP 51 

To Mother 55 

My Easter 57 

Be Not Ashamed Overmuch 63 

The Gospel of God 65 

The Woods 68 

A Song 71 

The Soul's Destiny and Satisfaction ... 73 

Christ's Life : A Constant Redemptive Impulse . 76 

A Testimony 78 

Christ was Wise and True 80 

Truth : A Vision 84 

iii 



iv CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



To AN Arguer 87 

Disobedience 88 

To You WHO ARE Perplexed 90 

Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery . 93 

The Templar Knight 96 

Apostolic Hopes 99 

To the Jews lor 

Lines 104 

Plain Preaching 107 

To Livingstone's Memory in 

The Rich Ruler's Story 112 

Christ in the Saloon 118 

NicoDEMUs, D.D 121 

The Testimony 122 

Dear Love's Oration to the Common People . 127 
Hymn . . . . . . . . . .138 

In the Post Office 144 

The Ambition 150 

Prayer 153 

Health Divine 157 

A Mother 163 

Education 169 

An Avowal 174 

Walt Whitman 176 

To All Manhattanese 178 

A Rhapsody 180 

The Invitation 189 

The Forest Vision 192 



CONTENTS. V 

PAGE 

To Jesus Christ ....... 194 

From Brooklyn Bridge 195 

The Confidence 199 

They Say Thou Art Unknowable. . , .201 

The Unreason of Despair 203 

"Art Thou A King Then?" 204 

The Triumph of Being 205 

Ode to Israel 206 

The Question 211 

Christ and His Friends 213 

The Kingdom 215 

Enough for Me the Christian Faith . . . 220 

Our Rights 221 

Facts Forever 224 

Ode to Beauty 226 

The Soul's Age 230 

To a Poet who Denies a Future Life . . 231 

The Other World 232 

The Apostle's Desire 234 

The Divine Life and Church .... 239 

Sympathy and Brotherhood 244 

The Apostles 250 

Christianity is Revolutionary .... 258 

Henry Ward Beecher : A Rhapsody . . . 259 



POETICAL SERMONS. 



TO YOU. 



I AM that man ordained from the beginning to 
meet you soul to soul ; 

To satisfy you about death and life and to persuade 
you as to your own nature ; 

Not saying : " This you ought to hold " but show- 
ing what holds you ; 

The faith spontaneous with your youth to ratify, 
confirm ; 

Announce to you your own significance and that of 
that to you committed ; 

To prate of neither Greece nor India — their history, 
age, resources ; 

To show to you resources in yourself equal the 
best of India's, Asia's ; 



2 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Your age by eons, not by years, to estimate ; your 

history, not in this or that, but in the sum of 

all earth's changes read ; 
Picture in you Napoleon's wars, battles of Bunker 

Hill and Gettysburg, the Pilgrimage of 

Israel, Babel, the Flood, Creation ! 
Say they but illustrate your nature ; and illustrate 

it but in part — 
Say Sinai is in you ; say Horeb and the still small 

voice and Solomon's high feast and David's 

faith and valor are in you ; 
Say art (not merely technical or conscious, but 

vitally employed) even in your speech, acts, 

countenance, I see. 
I come Religion to exploit, not as a mere tradition, 

relic ; but as your natural flowering, fruitage 

here ; 
To say that inspiration, prophecy ; the vision of 

the seer and Francis of Assisi's holiness are 

all germane to you. 
Philosophy the like of Plato's ; song — epic — even 

as Homer's ; conduct quite Christ-like, 

glorious, high, I certify in you. 
Dear friend, do you not trust my word ? Think you 

I '11 fail or disappoint you ? Think you that 

I exaggerate ? 



TO YOU. 3 

Urged, moved, compelled — I know not how — I 

come : (this love was of necessity) 
The silent, infinite, dynamic to demonstrate in you. 
I think you '11 fling the novel down to read your 

lover's letter ; 
Drop business, pastime, for a while to hear your 

mother, wife, discuss the family good. 
This is the purport of my book ; this is its scope 

intent and character. 
' T is of your nature, too, a law that sometime you 

receive me. 
Dear friend! why put the matter off? Why not 
to-day accept your freedom, wisdom, self, 
the Holy Ghost of Goodness ? 
Why sit or talk or take another step or go down- 
stairs or up or read another phrase without 
God's inspiration ? 
'T is true I count you of Christ's race. Why rather 
credit such as doubt, ignore in you God's 
power ? 
Dear friend ! I trust in you God's power. I hail 

in you Christ's character ! 
Not the great sages, poets, seers, I praise — not 
Beecher, Whitman, Luther, Paul, or Emerson — 
It is to you I come direct. I see the best of all, in 
all the best, in you. 



THE BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 

A Semi-Centennial Song. 

PLYMOUTH ! The Spirit that is Man 
And Truth and Love in one — 
That was before the years began 

And shall be when they 'r done, 
Descending, in our days, on thee 
I 've seen and sing in ecstasy. 

Valiant thou art and knit to thee 

In spirit on the earth. 
The brave of every land must be 

And all who for the birth 
Of some diviner manhood long 
With tears and prayers and midnight song. 

And therefore unto thee belongs 
The tribute of our praise. 



THE BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 5 

In hymns and ballads, odes and songs 

And rude romantic lays 
Like those that of Sir Arthur tell 
And how the mighty Roland fell. 

"Westward from England, o'er the seas," 
'T was said, " A land there lies 

Unknown to Rome, unknown to Greece, 
And shrouded from the eyes 

Of Hebrew Seers, who dared to try 

Some secrets of Futurity." 

And when discovered to mankind 

The hidden realm had been, 
To Heaven's aim their eyes were blind 

And o'er its plains the sin 
Of despotism, cold and vain. 
Their hearts desired to do again. 

But God forbade and some who came 

The wilderness to dress 
Bore in their hearts a secret flame 

Of love for righteousness ; 
And by its light that truth they read 
That slaves refuse and tyrants dread. 



POETICAL SERMONS. 

They saw the individual soul 

Still striving to make good 
Its secret power of self-control, 

That 'mongst a brotherhood 
Of equals it might stand and be 
Self-governed and thence nobly free. 

They saw a state where each man strove 
To serve that Power whose eye 

Doth measure manhood by its love, 
Life by its loyalty ; 

Nor marks upon this feeble Earth, 

The vanities of wealth and birth. 

Yea ! such a vision, white as law 

And beautiful as song, 
They looked upon, in joy and awe, 

The silent woods among. 
And sacred was its light to them. 
As to the Jews, Jerusalem. 

O world abstract ! that took no tone 

Of color from the woods, 
Thou wert to hardy mystics known, 

And in these solitudes 



THE BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. ; 

The reign of God did they desire 
Oblivious of the forest choir ! 

For birds in every land do sing 

And, always, trees are fair ; 
But Truth to serve in every thing 

And stand her conscious heir 
And know that she through thee shall bless 
Mankind — is joy made limitless. 

And these this sacred passion knew 

As in the woods they wrought. 
To frame their lives and manners true 

To that ideal Thought 
That with a fairer beauty blooms 
Than any flower that winter dooms. 

And thence for standard true they took 

Like heroes in their hands, 
That bold and transcendental book 

That of the king demands 
Justice and truth in all he saith, 
And of the priest a living faith. 

And these when Mother England lacked 
(God grant unto her both !) 



POETICAL SERMONS. 

Our sires renounced with her their pact 

And owned a higher oath 
Of loyalty to Truth, that ne'er 
Involves her children in a snare. 

And swift and hot from soul to soul 

The patriot flame did run ; 
When rose, supreme in self-control. 

Tremendous Washington ; 
A man of faith whose actions taught 
The weight and measure of his thought. 

A nature sober in success, 

Unvanquished in defeat, 
August in daily faithfulness, 

Called by election meet 
That modern manhood to espouse 
That all save heroes fear to rouse. 

Yet sure it is that hard to slay 

Is Tyranny on earth ; 
And, throttled though she be to-day, 

To-morrow sees the birth 
Of one, another name that wears, 
And yet the self-same spirit bears, 



THE BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 9 

Within the heart of freedom's home, 

A shameless thing was born — 
A spirit that did not become 

The kindling light of morn ; — 
A shadow of the past — unfit 
Democracy with God in it. 

But in its hour of pride and boast 

Were mighty voices heard, 
And pleaders of the Holy Ghost 

The waiting people stirred. 
From North to South their words went forth 
And many feared in South and North. 

The hearts of men grew cold ! The flame 

Of courage died away, 
When from the West a patriot came 

Whose spirit none could stay ; 
A Luther-nature, large and free — 
Whose word, mien, look, cried : '* Liberty ! " 

Called from the silent woods, he came 

The people's life to share ; 
To know through sympathy their shame, 

And out of love to dare 



lO POETICAL SERMONS. 

The tempests of unreason rude, 
And rule them from a nobler mood. 

Faith in his Land had made him proud, 

But smote him when he saw 
God in the people disallowed, 

Even in a public law. 
Beneath the shame his spirit groaned, 
And for the Nation's sin atoned. 

Then spoke a Voice with passion filled 

With prophecy made bold — 
Whose thunder-tones a nation thrilled 

Aroused from torpor cold. 
Old Custom in her throne-room heard 
Aye doomed and sentenced by that Word 

Truth masters man without a sword 

And human slavery stood 
Even by her sons and heirs abhorred 

E'er yet a drop of blood 
Stained sod or stream — or Sumpter's flame 
The call to sacrifice became. 

Therewith to all was Plymouth known, 
As here, before, we knew 



THE BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. II 

His soul in whom all greatness shone — 

A man thrilled through and through 
With such persuasions as possess 
A prophet — for he was no less. 

Plain power was in his speech ; but when 
His soul throughout was moved, 

Awe filled us and we learned again, 
How those apostles loved, 

Whom still the truth constrained till they 

Enkindled nations in their day. 

For when with unrestrained scorn 

He thundered against aught, 
His passion of his love was born ; 

For, to his kindling thought, 
Man to despoil, refuse, deny — 
Was outrage, treason, blasphem.y. 

Then burst he forth anew to show 

Christ, as the Manhood free 
Of all the years : whom still to know 

To all and each must be 
Strength, vision, inspiration, bliss, 
Endurance, service, manliness. 



12 POETICAL SERMONS. 

That hour Democracy its home 
Found in the Gospel : thence 

Did Plymouth to the world become 
Of central consequence. 

Hearts earnest about man discerned 

Its meaning, and with rapture burned. 

Kossuth from far Hungarian hills 

Came hither : men apart 
Whose spirits suffered with the ills 

Wherewith the people smart, 
Hailed the Great Pleader, come so late, 
To be the whole world's advocate. 

And ever of the soul thou spaked'st, 

And of its rights divine, 
And ever in our midst thou breaked'st 

The bread and poured the wine 
Of faith and love, and we became 
One membership in soul and name — 

Nor cared that Orthodoxy still 

Our way misunderstood, 
And ancient Dogma took so ill 

Our Apostolic mood 



THE BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 1 3 

And drew aside her skirts, nor wist 
What inspiration vast she missed. 

For thou intent on life profound, 

Walkedst on as one who saw 
Visions ; thy passion to expound 

Life's spiritual law, 
Whereof thou mad'st report not dull, 
But various, radiant, wonderful. 

Therein thou sawest the world ; therein 

Thou servest the soul, alert 
All liberties for it to win — 

For thou man's lover wert 
And spokesman ; dauntless, valiant, glad : 
And scarce hath Earth a nobler had. 

And thence about thee rallied well 

Old heroes of men's rights ; 
And Plymouth seemed a citadel 

Thronged with the dauntless knights 
Of the new faith ; all hot to test 
If God, Truth, Man could be suppressed. 

Here Phillips spoke, and Greeley here : 
And here in days gone bye 



14 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Came Lincoln, to the nation dear, 

And Brooks whose ministry 
Was of th€ Spirit ; and that saint 
Of Hartford ; Bushnell, brave and quaint, 

And earnest men like him who reared 
The Hampton schools, and he 

Who late upon our shores appeared 
As if mankind to free 

From superstitions grave and old — 

Arnold, for such a task too cold. 

They came from far and called it home, 

This house of Freedom's choice. 
And still with yearning hearts they come 

To hear another voice 
That pleads for man whose soul is stirred 
Of Truth and owns the Eternal Word- 
Not writ on pages lost and torn 

Nor tables hewn of stone, 
But in the vital soul reborn 

Sanctioned, inspired, alone 
Of very God ; dynamic thence 
And of eternal consequence — 



THE BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH, 1 5 

Always at hand yet unconceived ; 

Life's corner-stone set by 
And other chosen : unbelieved 

Though only verity, 
(Where all beside is talk ! ) So is 
Truth in God's world to sons of his ! 

And so, when Beecher spoke, again 

Reality became 
Sensational to mortal men 

Beyond the power or name 
Of any rite : and but to be 
His listener seemed a dignity. 

life, Manhood, Sympathy with him 

Were instinct, nature — yet 
Purpose no less — when dull and grim 

Maligners did beset 
His genial spirit and he strove 
With hell and did not fail in love. 

Thence drew he us to him anew : 

And even more deeply still 
He spake himself as one who knew, 

The life ineffable 



l6 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Of rest in God and many a mood 
Of joy, pride, rapture, gratitude. 

And thus was unto us displayed 
A man's soul ; and we saw 

A mighty nature unarrayed, 
Fulfilling aye the law 

Of manhood high, in faith and love : 

And therewith took we note thereof. 

Nor once nor twice such urgent stress 
Charged look and raein and voice, 

It seemed a Mightier did possess 
His spirit — not of choice 

But uncontrollably ; yet he 

Was then himself most splendidly. 

Great power is his in whom the urge 
Of mightiest manhood mounts 

Godward, as by some inward surge 
Whereof no man accounts — 

(Nor he himself who speaks !) and we 

Beheld in joy this mystery. 

Nor yet was he from man withdrawn, 
Nor less than any lad 



THE BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 1/ 

Rejoiced in nature ; night and morn 

And midday made him glad : 
And most, the hills, the clouds, the herds 
And fields and woods and choiring birds. 

And children and the home-life free — 

And each familiar joy 
A mother shares and hideth ; he 

Could tell ; and every boy 
Beheld in him his hero bold, 
And toward him yearned with thoughts untold. 

Thus did he serve : a man of God, 

Indeed of God, nor less 
A man with men, in whom abode 

All passions that possess 
A human life o'er-mastered by 
The Infinite named sympathy. 

And all he was and all he shared 

Of genius, power or place. 
He spent on each, as one who cared 

For all the Human Race ; 
And, most, for the maligned, the Jew, 
The black and China's children, too. 



1 8 POETICAL SERMONS. 

So was his work complete, and when 

That ministry was done 
Wherein he labored among men, 

Their thoughts became as one 
Toward him their loyal neighbor true — 
The friend of skeptic, Churchman, Jew. 

Thence also are we come to learn 

What love is and behold 
With open minds and hearts that burn 

The work performed of old 
By Christ and Paul repeated here ; 
And man to man made still more dear. 

O joy ! Life's inmost message shakes 
Man's spirit ! Who is man ? 

Of God, of Truth, his soul partakes ; 
Of love since life began 

His soul reports : his life, his law 

Is love, as all the prophets saw. 

Dull Ocean thundering at its shores, 

Stars in their courses set 
Hold not the glory man adores 

Beside Gennessaret 



J 



THE BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 1 9 

Or in old Plymouth Church, even in 
The Sonship it is his to win. 

Thence are we summoned now. A Voice 

Hath pled for us. We are 
Allied to Love that doth rejoice 

To reign in every star 
Or flower of earth ; but most in man, 
His child and heir since years began. 

Apostles, prophets, saviors, seers 

Are with us, and we know 
Eternal life as still the years 

Upon our souls bestow 
More faith and clearer visions give, 
While to eternal ends we live. 

For we to all relations hold 

Unmeasured, since the day 
When inspiration made us bold 

To choose the narrow way 
Of freedom, joy, and faith ; which still 
We keep through the eternal will. 

For we are destined men. To us 
Hath been committed here, 



20 POETICAL SERMONS. 

A word and life more glorious, 

Than doth to all appear. 
We are a body who possess 
The prophecies of God, no less. 

O consciousness most blessed ! O 
Persuasion strong ; yet still 

Empty and vain, except we show 
Friendship invincible 

And while this stress is on us all, 

Content us not with service small. 

Nor judge us cold, nor count us rude 
O Christian men ! though we 

Find Truth the foe of Platitude, 
Faith of Conformity — 

For such awhile must be our mood — 

Not by Convention understood. 

And O, be yours whate'er of grace, 

Of influence or effect, 
Abides with us, if face to face, 

(As man to man erect) 
Before the truths of life ye stand. 
And know in them your God at hand. 



THE BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 21 

This is the message all unmissed 

Of Plymouth ; we are men 
Whose souls beyond what erst we wist, 

Have seen and known again 
God with his people ; and thereof 
We testify in joy and love. 

And whatsoe'er is ours pertains 

To all ; and whatsoe'er 
The great Apostles knew, remains 

One sense in all aware 
Of their true selves — the manhood high 
Whose form is Christ eternally. 

One is man's life with God's ! One is 

His work and office here 
With Jesus Christ's — one function his, 

With that which was so dear 
To him who for men's souls asleep 
Died as a shepherd for his sheep ! 

In love to quicken us to love, 

Our proper life, that we 
Might know the height and depth thereof, 

And own its regnancy 



22 POETICAL SERMONS. 

And sway eternal, that outruns 
The world and all the cosmic suns. 

This is our heritage — the hope 

Of all the ages past ; 
The goal to which the nations grope, 

The consciousness amassed 
Of human kind, and uttered here, 
In joy and love that casts out fear. 

We will be true to it ! We must 
Confession make. From hence 

Know we the nature of our trust. 
And of its consequence 

Are cognizant, and show to all 

The temper apostolical. 

This, therefore, we confess. There is 

God only, dominant 
In death and life, and we are his ; 

This also is the vaunt 
Of love and faith. Nor all in vain, 
We prophesy and preach again. 

God in his Universe, not lost 
As odor in the air ; 



THE BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 23 

But present, as at Pentecost, 

Wherever and whene'er 
The heart desires good. So is 
God in this world to sons of his. 

Man, in his Father's house a son, 
Whose power of choice must be 

As sacred as the eternal throne ; 
Whose only loyalty 

Is to the Truth — the spirit wise 

Of service, pity, sacrifice. 

For love his nature is. Not God 

Is spirit only ; man 
Is spirit too ; and his abode 

Since human life began 
Has spiritual been. The sphere 
Of God is life and action here. 

Nor realms nor worlds to come, afar 

Even from the inward Word 
Of our experience, nobler are 

Than this ; which here has stirred 
Our inmost spirits with a sense 
Of Fatherhood and Providence. 



24 POETICAL SERMONS. 

And even this Word that here we know 

Is bred in us, because 
God in his world surrounds us so ; 

And his eternal laws 
Writes in our nature, as in all 
This world apocalyptical. 

Then seek not greatness save at home ; 

Gaze not nor strain to see 
What was in past times ; say, " 'T is come, 

God's Word is hid in me ; 
Reality I come to now, 
Sonship and Godhood I avow ! " 

Free also are we through his love, 

And in his love we can 
Confess his Word and act above 

That lower self which man 
Sees in a dream and wakes to find 
Abolished from his proper mind. 

Therefore we sing again. In Christ 

Find we ourselves and say — 
Life is of God ; we are sufficed ; 

And ever from to-day 



THE BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 2$ 

Singing we go and give a voice 
To joy ; yea ! and we will rejoice. 

Singing we go, but not the less 

As heroes to the strife, 
Wrongs uncomputed to redress, 

And to promote the life 
Of human kind, till all who live 
Share largelier of its' privilege. 

For in a struggle as sublime 

As that wherein of old 
Immortal Beecher served his time 

We also are enrolled. 
The issues of the age we see 
And serve, like him, posterity. 

Yea ! look around ! To-day with us 

Our towns and States among 
Where men should all be prosperous 

Who righteous are and strong 
The riches of the rich exceed 
Desire, and thousands are in need. 

Nor say : " It must be so," nor say : 
*' What is, is what has been." 



26 POETICAL SERMONS. 

So forty years ago said they 

Who justified the sin 
Of all the ages of the race 
And gave not to the prophets place. 

And why say some of aught that still 
Conscience and Right demands : 

" ' T' ivere best, but V is impossible ! " 
Are then the very hands 

Of the Eternal chained, and we 

Bereft ourselves of Deity ? 

" Consider ye the poor," 't was thus 
Of old the prophets cried ; 

And lo ! the poor increase with us 
And want is multiplied, 

Even here, where since the world began 

Such wealth was never known to man. 

This problem is our own. The thing 

Is even at our doors 
Self-wrought, and by no distant king ; 

While ever it implores 
The searching thought profound of each 
Who seeks to serve or dreams to teach. 



THE BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 27 

And we can solve it ! Wealth there is 

That to the State belongs, 
Which some have coveted amiss, 

Unwitting all the wrongs 
Upon their brothers wrought, who live 
Robbed of life's proper privilege. 

Joy, say I, for the thought and chance 

Of service such as shall 
The life of all the land enhance 

As if by miracle. 
How ? Bid the public school befit 
For life the pupils trained in it. 

Were it so strange a thing that we 

Should to our children give 
By law the opportunity 

And just prerogative 
Of manual training, free to all 
Who live by crafts mechanical ? 

Still seek we wisdom. But the greed 

That riots in excess 
Supplies it not. Great is the need 

Of skill, for skilfulness 



28 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Is not in vain. The trained eye 
And hand shall bless posterity. 

These be our later cares, but O ! 

That all men understood 
(Or studied day and night to know) 

The people's needs and good ! 
Then should the poor be taught indeed 
And trained against the hour of need. 

For we belong to men. To them 

Are we allied indeed, 
Though priests and scholars still condemn 

The church without a creed. 
Still are we lovers, banned or cursed, 
Nor less men's servants than at first. 

Nor have we aught to boast of now, 

Except that spirit free 
Which lives for service anyhow 

And cannot help but be 
Mighty with men ; and thus we know 
That God is with us. Even so. 

For, back of all, the Power abides 
That aideth not self-will 



THE BALLAD OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 29 

But quickens, liberates and guides 

The loving Spirit still 
Which is his glorious Son and bright 
With the Eternal Father's light. 

And therefore fear we nothing. Strong 

And valiant unto death ; 
O let our service like a song, 

Filled with inspired breath, 
All free, spontaneous and glad — 
To Earth's delight and courage add ! 

The good our souls desire must be. 

The blessings that we crave 
For other lives our own shall see ; 

And they who seek to save 
The poor and for their good provide 
Shall be themselves beloved beside. 

This, too, hath Plymouth taught. She lives 

Among the people still, 
Nor gathers aught but what she gives, 

Incarnating the will 
And mind of God, lest she become 
Unfruitful, visionless and dumb — 



30 POETICAL SERMONS. 

And cease from deeds that thrill and stir 

To prophecy and song — 
To-day the living chronicler, 

Who ' gainst so great a wrong 
Lifts here to heaven his latest cry : 
" Dear God ! thy prophets multiply. 

" And take not hence thy Spirit dear — 

As ne'er thou wilt, if we 
Act in His unction without fear 

And walk in verity 
Of faith and friendship more and more 
Forever, even as heretofore." 



UNIVERSITY ENDOWMENT. 

THE trivial millionaire, 
His prime of life devoted to affairs of little 
moment to a serious mind, 
His main concern to magnify his property (or other 

personal whim), 
Conceives at last a more ambitious purpose, 
And would endow a college ! 

Endow a college thou ? 

Howe'er thy millions may endow a college, 

Thou — thou thyself, a stricken child of intellectual 
poverty. 

Lacking the wit to know at all that life's whole gain 
is character, love, joy, and spiritual affluence, 

Should'st rather ask, in tones of startling earnest- 
ness, 

IV/ia^ college can endow me ? 

31 



32 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Who shall endow the college ? 

Haply some lad dismissed therefrom, as Shelley 
once from Oxford ; 

Haply the booby of the class, as Beecher once at 
Amherst ; 

Or one who ne'er enjoyed its course, as Whitman 
wandering lone and wrapt the waste and end- 
less beaches of Long Island — 

These shall endow the college. 

For these, and such as these, are wisdom's faithful 
sons and heirs — to thought and sympathy in- 
tense devoting boyhood's fervent days and 
manhood's later strength ; 

Concerned with spiritual concerns ; with universal 
ends ; humanity's real genius, good, and man- 
hood's brave completion in the spirit ; 

The essence, quality of Godliness (the wisdom, 
joy, sufficiency of faith and hope and love) 
confessing without lapse : 

To men's and universities' advantage. 



CHRISTIAN RICHES. 

PERCEIVE that the things which were needful 
to me once are needful to me now no i-nore ; 

And this, not because they were worthless or empty 
in themselves, 

But rather because I have appropriated so fully 
their qualities that they inhere in what I am 
myself. 

So that I need not now, as once I needed, my much 
loved books ; the order and secret relation- 
ship of all truth being now germane to me ; 

And now I require not (as once I required) the in- 
spiration of works of art. 

Murillo's Madonnas are mine and Lorraine's land- 
scapes are mine, and mine are Albert Durer's 
woodcuts, and mine Rossetti's portraits and 
Jan Van Eyck's fair " Paradise of God." 

Nor nature's gracious and impressive shows, so 
helpful once, I need. 

33 



34 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Lo ! cloud and sun are mine ; the height of strain- 
ing peaks in darkness lost ; the concrete glory 
of the stars is mine, and mine the fairness of 
the common earth and all the seas and islands. 

Nor prayer-meetings, nor books of prayer, I need ; 
nor meditation on religious things, nor any- 
thing apart from daily, natural thoughts of God 
and Man, spontaneous with me now. 

Lo ! that which is farthest in the universe is pres- 
ent in me ; and that which is highest of all is 
that which is deepest in me. 

And that which is most supernatural and miracu- 
lous of all things is a regular, everyday affair 
with me now. 

I need no testimony of miracles to convince me of 
my spiritual nature. I do not require the Bible 
to inform me of it, nor to instruct me in its 
rights and uses. 

For the Word of God grows and multiplies in my 
experience from month to month, and is be- 
come the main factor in my life and my chief 
enjoyment here. 

Lo ! prompted by the Spirit I announce the spiritual 
in myself as truly as in any — even Moses or 
Jesus. 



CHRISTIAN RICHES. 3^ 

Peace, quiet, harmony, I know ; content I go my 
way observing death and life. 

I need no laying on of hands ; no ritual, rite, or 
ordinance. 

A friend of God myself, an intimate of seers, apos- 
tles, prophets ; 

A giver of religion daily ; why should I ask an- 
other for religion ? 

The voice — the utterance too, is mine. 

Repressed for years and years ; I let my passion, 
inspiration, loose. 

And chant as mine the wisdom, faith of sixty mill- 
ions others. 

Affirming faithfully of them, as well as of myself. 

All lovers' loves are ours ; all comrades* greetings 
and warm hand-shakes ours ; and ours the 
spiritual sympathy profound subsisting between 
earnest, striving men (reformers, revolution- 
ists and heretics, so called) in every land be- 
neath the general sun. 

And thence, though all be lost that once we knew 
of friends, health, books and scenes and senses ; 

Behold ! bereft of these we still can sing — exulting 
in old age — bereft of all (yet re-endowed with 
the high meaning and significance of all) we 



36 POETICAL SERMONS. 

still can sing with gratitude and joy immense 

the endless, ceaseless, drainless life we know 

(which is the life of all). 
Yea ! still God's life — the life of joy, emancipation, 

service, hope, I sing. 
And man's true life, the same as the above, the life 

of honor, courage, faith, intelligence — 
The life of love I sing. 



THE POET'S PART. 

I KNOW not wholly nor define the writings I 
produce, 
For what I write is full of forms of all that I 

behold. 
Pictures and storms and hosts of ships proceed 

alike from me : 
And cities now by song I build and tie together 

lands that erst were wide apart. 
By song 'tis mine to alter lives and change the 

dreams of men : 
To turn old foes to fervent friends and friends to 

strangers too. 
I come to seem, to many, poor and ignorant and 

rude ; 
To others : rich and wise and fine and noble in my 

ways, 
I am, myself, both rich and poor. I am both bond 

and free and I am wise and ignorant. 
I know I am not this nor that alone ; but I am 

also, all. 

37 



38 POETICAL SERMONS. 

The part I play is not my part alone ; for every 

other's part is really also mine (and mine is 

every other's.) 
I am the man who walks the streets discouraged, 

lonely, sick. 
I am the hero full of strength and undismayed in 

death. 
I am the boy who feels himself despised and 

wanders Broadway or the Strand, ashamed to 

be so poor. 
I am the genius all unknown who thinks to change 

the world with poems about God. 
I am the sinner, rising in his place, to give his 

testimony in the meeting. 
I am the one who is converted ; 1 am examined 

and received into the Church of Christ. 
I am the scholar, in the class, who wearies of his 

book and longs for summer lanes. 
I am the teacher, at his desk, who wearies of the 

lad who wearies of his book. 
Dear friend ! hast thou been outraged ? wronged ? 

misrepresented ? hurt ? 
Ah ! so have I ! that suits my case as well. 
I 've been a failure and success, I Ve had my 

poems praised and I have had them spurned. 



THE POET'S PART. 39 

'T was not my father served me best, though more 

than I deserved my mother did for me. 
And, always, there are those I help and there are 

those I hurt. 
Of ahnost all I've been or known, I've known or 

been the opposite. 
Prosaic, commonplace, intense, imaginative, cold — 
I '11 credit thee with all I am and thou shalt credit 

me with everything thou art. 
A coward, hero, prisoner, priest, employer, laborer, 

clerk ; 
A poet, prophet, sinner, slave, deliverer, lover, 

friend. 
Whate'er thou wilt I '11 prove I am and what thou 

thinkest me shall show me what thou art. 
I think thee better than I think ; I think thee 

sovereign, free ! I think thee holy, infinite ! 
I find alone by praise of thee and service of thee 

here my daily life enhanced. 
I find by sympathy with thee my light and life re- 
stored and ever more replenished. 
I know I live by serving thee ; I cannot live at all 

except I live for thee — 
My brother who art Judas — Christ — my Saviour or 

betrayer. 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 

FOR judgment I am come, 
That the sinful man should know his sins, 
And the slavish man abhor his slavishness ; 
And the ignorant man his ignorance, and the un- 
clean man his filthiness. 
And to this end I preach Christ in my poems and 

exploit the beauty, glory, and majesty of the 

wise and faithful Son of God. 
And declare the nature and extent of his powers, 

faculties, and qualities ; and proclaim that they 

are infinite. 
I proclaim his health, magnetism, purity, valor, 

obedience, industry, and gentleness, and his 

power to forgive sins and restore the insane, 

injured, and infirm to soundness. 
I walk in awe and honor of him — in admiration and 

allegiance of love. 
I swear by him ; and in death and in life, I will 

assert his righteousness and wisdom. 
40 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 4 1 

And whoever denieth these qualities in him, shall 
be to me as one awaiting resurrection ! 

** But he lived a long time since," you urge. "He 

lived a long way off," you answer. 
" Perhaps the accounts are unreliable. The gospels 

and epistles were written many, many decades 

after his death. 
How do you know that he was sinless ? Why are 

you so sure that he worked miracles ? 
Everyone I hear concerning Christ makes a com- 
monplace assertion of his peculiarity. 
Yet, O ! if he was altogether different from me, 

what applicability has his experience and life 

to my life and experience ? 
If he was other than an altogether human being, 

what has he to say to altogether human beings ? 
Can I understand another kind of nature than my 

own ; or translate the inconceivable into the 

known ? 
Tell me not that he was in the form of man, 
But tell me that he was altogether a man divine. 
Else you defraud me of him still, and like Mary 
I cry aloud : * They have taken away my Lord, 

and I know not where they have laid him.' " 



42 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Lo ! I will answer you straight ; I will humbug you 

no more ! 
I will frankly admit that I know nothing, and can 

know nothing of Jesus Christ that I know not 

wholly from my experience of others' lives or 

through the visitations of the Spirit of God to 

my own life. 
Behold ! as to the singularity of Jesus Christ, I 

think not that he came to demonstrate his 

singularity to our confusion here. 
To say, " Unlike to you am I ; unlike my words, 

thoughts, feelings, acts to yours. 
None ever lived as I ; none ever taught as I." 
Nay ! this is not the gospel. 

Rather, O joy ! I count Heaven's message this : 

That Jesus claimed not aught from God, nor aught 
of power or good or truth within himself dis- 
covered ; 

That he proclaimed not, day and night, to be man's 
common heritage. 

Because of God's dear will and life resurgent in the 
world. 

Nay ! not to demonstrate himself peculiar — 



THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 43 

Diverse in kind from man — of other powers and 
qualities and functions ; 

But rather to proclaim the eternal Father one in 
kind with man 

I reckon Jesus came. 

O, joy ! the simple faith is mine ; the infinite sim- 
ple faith of vista vast and promise ever grow- 
ing : 

The faith to indicate so easy ; to utter, save by 
death and life, impossible ; 

That bids me own that I enjoy through grace to all 
men granted, 

A word of prophecy divine as theirs who wrote the 
gospels. 

Dear friend : to Christ, our common friend, can'st 
thou not say as I ; 

" I too, as certainly as thou, art capable of Truth. 

I yet in faith and hope and love shall know divine 
ability. 

I yet shall walk in Brooklyn streets 

As thou beside the Lake of Galilee once walkedst. 

And say with soul exultant, wrapt, yet steadfast, 
calm and clear — 

Weighing the words I speak — 

(Astonished that I should speak them ; yet, in 



44 POETICAL SERMONS. 

the holy realization of their truth, repeating 

them again and again unto myself) 
* / am the way, the truth, the resurrection and the 

life of man. 
None Cometh to the Father here save as he comes to 

what to-day I am — 
A spirit qzdcketied unto peace, hope, joy and love and 

confidence — 
A Holy Spirit, quickening all I greet to deeper peace, 

hope, joy and love and confidence.' " 



REPENT. 

YOU, who have travelled far, 
I would that you had also travelled nearer ! 
More to the point I mean ; more to some end of 

use, advantage, profit here ! 
Seen not so much alone the varied, panoramic 

Avorld, oft travelled and described, 
But more the vital, permanent world and kingdom 

of the spirit ; enjoyed more varied explorations 

there. 
Trod not so much alone the shores that Dante trod: 

but in the poet's faith, hope, sympathy, taken 

a house and home. 
Lolled not so long on the ^gean tide beneath the 

cliffs of Salamis ; 
But oftener felt the surging of thy blood in actual 

hero-struggle. 
Enjoyed from famous preachers' lips a number less 

of sermons ; 

45 



46 POETICAL SERMONS. 

But deeplier shared the Spirit's urge wherewith all 

prophets plead. 
Viewed fewer paintings at the shrines of art in 

Italy or Greece ; 
But felt, in fuller measure, thrall of beauty's spell 

divine ! 
Away ! too much in volumes old we read of those 

who for their country suffered. 
Our native country calls in vain on us, unconscious 

of her shame, heedless the issue of to-day's 

hard fight. 
Dear friend ! so late we muse on greatness fled we 

miss the sense and touch of greatness present, 

importuning us ! 
Hearest thou no challenge to thy worldly soul in 

every hero-act the daily papers note ? 
O, wanderer, wandering far amiss in dilettante 

science, history, verse, 
Return to life, love, thought, thyself and action in 

the Spirit. 
(Christ's Spirit, man's true natural home ; a King- 
dom older than the world 
And newer than the thoughts my words awake in 

thee !) 
Pondering, no more, I rise ; foregoing reminiscence, 

reflection or the like. 



REPENT. 47 

Of present, infinite inspiration, aware and conscious 
now ! 

Conceiving Jesus risen, here ! My God in life and 
death ; a Spirit challenging the world, its lit- 
erature, art, society and sermons ; 

Interpreted by faithful men and souls of vital sym- 
pathy ; 

Interpreted by Whitman best in literature here ; 
in'erpreted by Lincoln, Beecher here ; 

Interpreted by my own mother's life and every 
good man's or good woman's life ; 

Interpreted by all that is disclosed of moral hero- 
ism, faith, or personal character. 

Goodness more near the universal heart, more near 
the average sense of human kind I see ! 

Assured, I hear the common talk and interest re- 
lating more and more to human welfare 
here. 

I see all tributes rendered to the good rendered 
unto one spirit ; 

I see all worship ceasing from the world except the 
meet respect of fellowship in truth ; 

I see that there are no truths of religion that are 
not truths of life. 

I note the sharp peremptory demand for personal 
worth and force. 



48 POETICAL SERMONS. 

I see the test applied to all without regard to rank, 

class, social standing here. 
I see that aught which men believed for pastime or 

from laziness or out of deference to others, is 

ushered to the rear. 
I see that only he who speaks the thing that 't is not 

possible that he should doubt and live gets any 

audience now. 
I find that only he is heard whose soul is moved by 

truth beyond his conscious aim — 
Reader ! if I be not that man why waste thy hours 

with me ? 
Up ! listen not to me. Attend thyself to the 

Eternal Speaker who speaks the word thou 

needest. 



REFORM IN THE CITY. 

11 EN a work of good is undertaken 
In faith and love, 
Surely the walls of wrong are shaken 
And the base thereof. 

This have I seen with my own eyes lately 

In New York town, 
Where a Devil's stronghold, stout and stately, 

Was toppled down. 

" It is old, it is strong, it shall stand securely, 

It was reared for aye ! " 
Thus they said and believed most surely, 

But it fell, one day. 

It fell, and the holy souls who routed, 

In faith and love, 
That Devil's den, beheld and shouted 

At the fall thereof. 

49 



50 POETICAL SERMONS. 

O Godlike Love ! O faith most glorious, 

That did this thing, 
Ye have made the feeble folk victorious, 

The sad folk sing ! 



SONSHIP. 

AM unworthy to be called thy son, and yet I am 
thy son for thou hast called me so. 
And thou desirest my love, and I return increased 

the love thou first inspired ; 
And thank thee that I may express my love, since 

love until expressed enjoys no freedom here. 
Father ! in all I do or bear I may express that love 

to which my nature tends. 
For thou, in bidding me to love, desirest that which 

but fulfils my nature. 
Indeed thou bid'st me love for my own special 

good, and yet in loving thee I needs must 

serve mankind. 
And thou instructest me to serve and thou em- 

powerest me ; nor may I ever fail to serve 

while I am moved by love — obedient to truth. 
Father ! how fair a school of love is this I here 

attend — 

51 



52 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Sweet are the woods in autumn, winter, spring ; to 

exercise and health the daily soul inviting. 
Fair are the wondrous northern lakes, the Adiron- 
dack hills and vales, the harbor of New York 

and Boston's spreading bays. 
Fair unto awfulness the sun ; the stiller moon how 

fair and all the abstract teachings of the night ! 
Immense the stage whereon we act ; of import 

unconceived the part to each assigned. 
Sweet is whate'er is done in confidence, or out of 

gratitude or with the total soul. 
Ever in order here the faithfulness of laborer, maid 

or clerk or employee. 
In order, too, and just as valuable, the rush of 

nature in the early love of healthy boy or 

girl. 
In order, too, that beautiful restraint (the wisdom 

of self-government) remembered not in vain. 
Beautiful is the soul matured ; too large for personal 

spites or heats ; living a life in other's good, 

advancement. 
Enough the uses, chances of our lives ; sufficiently 

august our portion and our place ! 
Or toiling in the meadows vast before the dew is 

dried and till it falls at even ; 



SON SHIP. 53 

Or in the kitchen, small and hot, before the range 

all day or at the tubs all day ; 
Or in the office at thy desk still figuring columned 

figures, eight hours at a stretch ; 
Or tramping slush and snow at midnight on thy 

roundsman's beat through New York's stony 

lanes ; 
Or in the post-office, with me, amid the rush, 

activity, disquiet ; 
Or, as a typesetter, thy labor long each day for 

years, identical routine ; 
Or, pressed with business cares, thy wife an invalid, 

(thy children far from well). 
Be sure thy deeds, performed in faith, hope, sym- 
pathy, are reckoned in God's mind above the 

angels' fancied chorus. 
Duller the harps of seraphim than many a newsboy's 

shout about the ferryhouse at morn or evening 

here. 
Beyond, above imagination or artist's brush or 

burst of eloquence, the actual glory of the 

goodness that sleeps in New York's tenements. 
Enough ! the mystery infinite I see, the regal nature 

holy, high, foregoes as erst in Galilee its sceptre, 

robe, and throne. 



54 POETICAL SERMONS. 

The foolish priests chant on ; the Bishop or Arch- 
bishop dons his robes ; the President or Mayor 
attends in state and pomp the rich official 
banquet. 

In vain ! what holds the world together, at ninety 
or one hundred cents a day maintains the life 
within its sacred body ; 

And Inspiration, walking up and down (forgotten, 
ostracized, ignored by college, church, and 
state), whispers at night or morn to me or you 
that we are sons of God and heirs of Christ's 
own freedom. 

Awhile we dally, hesitate ; awhile the truth con- 
fronts us all in vain. But not to endless years 
is it in vain. At last we, too, shall own it. 



TO MOTHER. 

MOTHER ! my daily life is hid in thee ! 
Nor could I share as now, with buoyant heart 
and free, life's aims and satisfactions, 
Did I not daily, practically enjoy thy felt and un- 
deniable companionship ; 
Conceiving it to be my life to hold to that persuasion 

of thy presence. 
Which, daily, as I act as thou would'st have me act. 
Renews itself, confirms itself in me. 



Mother ! I have been heedless of thee often. 
Ashamed, I own that 't is my frequent wickedness 

to shut or separate my daily self from thee. 
Most heedlessly and needlessly I wander ; most 

cruel to myself to be deprived of thee. 
But O ! an evil so unnatural befalls not in God's 

will. 

55 



$6 POETICAL SERMONS. 

And he who masters unto good all seeming evil 

here 
Renews the sense, disturbed or lost, of fellowship, 

association, confidence ; 
Renews the intimacy, rest, delight, I had in thee ; 
Provides my life with thoughts of thee beyond my 

dream or prayer ; 
Refills my soul with thee thyself. Discovers in 

life's cares, joys, duties, uses, thee! 

Mother ! how infinite is thy mother-energy ! 
More, more ! even than in days of perfect health, 

to us thy conscience, love, affection, patience, 

ministers. 
Surely I own, and needs must own, thy actual hold 

on me in all I do or say. 
Surely thy joy to-da)^, as erst, is in thy children's 

welfare, good. 
Thou knowest their trials, errors strange and 

weaknesses ; 
Thou every day attendest them therein ; and with- 
out lapse dost minister of goodness, 
Even as awhile in former days thou did'st : but 

now in larger measure, even as we can 

receive. 



MY EASTER. 

I PERCEIVE that I must rise from the dead ; 
for I see that I have passed most of my years 

in a grave. 
But the power of God in the lives of the wise and 

good has prevailed to call me forth. 
Indeed it is not natural or possible that one should 

be buried for ever ; nor is it the Divine Will. 
I know I must shortly transcend this narrow place 

that I have occupied so long. 
I know I am allied to the infinite, the omnipotent 

and eternal. 
I desire and claim life and wisdom infinite — nothing 

less will do. 
I make no bones about the matter at all. 
I know that as yet I have influenced only a few 

persons but also know that I shall influence 

millions. 
I feel the faith, hope, love, late bread in me, cannot 

be all in vain. 

57 



58 POETICAL SERMONS. 

I feel the government of sympathy, the government 
of truth is not to prove a failure. 

I feel the Father's work in me and in my daily life, 
a work of dreamless consequence. 

Somehow I feel it must continue. I feel it must 
prevail. 

I care not of myself to speak. I boast not of my- 
self, but witness of God's will. 

The purity of aim that is in me shall yet be known 
to earth's remotest corners. 

The good I am in spirit and that ten thousand 
thousand others are, shall yet be openly dis- 
played to all who yearn for kinship. 

For lo ! I read that Christ communed with Moses 
and Elijah on the mount. 

And own that our affinity and conversation is in 
heavenly places with Christ Jesus, while yet 
we walk and muse alone through Brooklyn's 
sordid streets. 

I know how I walked in joy and triumph of spirit 
with Whitman, e'er in his Camden home I 
clasped his friendly hand. 

So also shall my nature find its own — electing by 
affinities magnetic all spirits of its kind. 

Boys at their desks at study time shall read me. 



MV EASTER. 59 

The lover to his mistress fair shall loan me for 
a day. 

The friends at parting, after they have kissed, shall 
whisper but my name ; therein a deeper, mu- 
tual tie confessing. 

The son shall leave his father for my sake. 

Old, famous families, for my sake, shall yet be rent 
in twain. 

Perhaps because of me great armies, yet at home 
or far away, shall battle ; 

Because my consciousness responds to Truth's im- 
mediate voice ; 

Because beyond my thought or aim I prove her 
spokesman here. 

Lo ! now, the theme transcends my wit, 

I see the infinite consequence of hearing, heeding 
God. 

I see in awe the joy that comes from meditating 
Christ. 

I see the power undreamed that 's borne of real 
communion with His spiritual nature. 

I see we need to be alive to all the spiritual pres- 
ences of the risen. 

I see that our relationships in spirit are deeper, 
mightier, more abiding than those of flesh and 
blood. 



6o POETICAL SERMONS. 

I see that more is due to Christ than unto any 
other ; 

Because those elements of character that most con- 
cern us here were His in fullest measure. 

Somehow I feel to miss His life and mind, would 
be to miss my own, 

I know the affirmations of His consciousness make 
proud and glad my soul. 

I know He felt Himself the spokesman of the soul : 
the witness of the good that struggles in us all. 

He voiced the faith that secretly inheres in every 
yearning down-trod man : nor can earth's holy 
heretics and sacred revolutionists forget Him. 

He voiced the inner dignity and sanctity of one's 
true personal self. 

He voiced it, dying for the word he spoke. Struck 
down because he said : *' I am the Son of God " 
yet never said : " / hold jnyself peculiar in so 
being." 

Therein I praise and personally thank Him ! 

Therein I know He spoke for me ; that I uncruci- 
fied, unblamed might say : " I am a king. I 
also am Messiah." 

Therefore the individual soul will own and love 
the man who dared heroically to voice its con- 
sciousness ; 



MY EASTER. 6 1 

Therefore the spell, the strong attraction of His 
nature, works. 

strange, He knew that it would work ! He said 

long since in Galilee : " And I, if I be faithful 
unto death, shall touch entire mankind ! " 

Thou hero, God ! Thou absolute goodness, hail ! 
Thy strong compulsion in my life I own, de- 
manding of me faithfulness. 

Anew Thou callest me from the dead. I come, as 
Lazarus from the grave. Thy voice by some 
high infinite law obeying. 

Easter for me ! the world of spiritual affirmation 
and affinity, the world of spiritual communion, 
insight, knowledge, dawns. 

1 know that I shall know their natures in whom 

Christ's love prevails. 
I know that I shall greet their spirits in whom His 

wisdom lodges. 
I know that I shall talk with Moses and Elijah. 
Shelley and Whitman I shall see : my mother I shall 

see. 
Or on this earth or no, is of but little consequence. 
I say the life that yields us heaven's whole vision 

already is begun. 
The good whom we have known we cannot cease 

from knowing. 



62 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Destined we are to nearer intimacy ; of heavenly 

recognition I cannot doubt at all. 
We shall see them and be conscious that they see us. 
Their natures shall shine directly into our own. 
Already I see I am not wholly apart from those I 

have loved and love. 
I believe (beyond my senses), that those whom I 

have known best, are still conscious of me as 

I of them. 



BE NOT ASHAMED OVERMUCH. 

OYOU of your own self too long ashamed ; 
. (Ashamed of much you do and say I hope 
and trust you are 
And yet,) whate'er your follies or transgressions, 
I say no longer kneel amid the dust. Arise ! be 

not ashamed : 
Believe the starry worlds prefer to have you with 

them ! 
The good, the gentle and the wise are not your hard 

accusers. 
Your accusations of yourself are not your deepest 

wisdom. 
These aberations, weaknesses, excesses, tumults, 

outrages that spring to-day in you are really 

not of you, in any final sense ; 
You also must transcend them ! 
For you, remember whom you are ! 
(Av/e fills me as I speak ; a reverence new and 

strange enchains me as I tell) 

63 



64 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Unduplicated yet in time ; unique amid the worlds, 

Your personality I hail, inviolable and dear and ab- 
solutely infinite. 

Yes, jw/, whatever rags you wear ; howe'er mistreat, 
deny, repudiate yourself — 

Elected you have been to share imperial power and 
functions ; 

To compass land and sea and more than land or 
sea or stars or suns of nameless realms remote, 
and also death and life ; 

To compass self-control ; to compass industry and 
joy ; to compass all right-mindedness ; 

And slandered by the cold and blind, and miscon- 
ceived by all, (even yourself at times,) 

To bear about in cheerfulness through days of 
physical discomfort and mental trouble too, 

The happy heart, the smiling face, the ready help- 
ful hand of one whose life is sympathy ; 

To stand complete in Him who first with reverence 
and respect declared to you yourself ; 

Saying, in life and death, while yet you scorned, 
ignored, derided him : 

" I have believed in you ! I am allied v/ith you ! and 
know that you shall know me I " 



THE GOSPEL OF GOD. 

BECAUSE it seems incredible 
So great delight, content, illumination should 
be for one alone, 
I rush to say ; To you, dear friend, such pleasure, 

hope, belief pertains in like degree. 
O bliss ! O rapture of this world, I say ; alike in 

sunshine or in murk, 
In sorrow or in joy the same, in undertakings hard 

and strenuous tasks and toils, as in luxurious 

ease or retrospective dream. 
Wonder in all I chant from hence ! In all, in each, 

a blest surprise — a bounteous benefaction. 
Good is it to be poor or rich, to be a simple learner 

good as also to instruct or to be old or young. 
Joys of the body's health I sing and of the open 

soul in every phase and mood ; 
The joys of household life undreamed and un- 
expressed in song ; 

65 



:^A 



(^ POETICAL SERMONS. 

The joys of occupation, work ; of every human 

task performed in cities or in fields ; 
The poet's rapture in God's world, the Artist's in 

his vast design, the mother's sacred pride in 

all her grown up sons and theirs in her ; 
The newsboy's and the bootblack's joy ; the hail 

the shipmate gives when turning in or out ; 
The farm lad's whistle down the lane, the cheery 

housemaid's song whene'er she mops the 

panes ; 
The kindly, faithful pastor's joys : the joys of 

sympathy " the profound lesson of reception, 

not preference, not denial " ; 
The lover-of-his-country's joys ; the mystic's joys 

of silent prayer ; the joys of adoration, secret 

praise, avowal ; 
Doubtless the lover's curious joys, the yearning, 

spell, attraction strange and terrible ; 
The joys of business life, responsibility ; the 

charge and oversight of other's interests and 

provision for their maintenance ; 
The absolute apostle's joys : joys of the Son of 

Man on earth ; the soul's own joys in its own 

right, not explicable here more than almighty 

God's. 



THE GOSPEL OF GOD. 6/ 

Dreams, mysteries there are ; persuasions master- 
ful there are and seasons of the Spirit's 
visitation 

When, suddenly, life seems all new ; all perfect, 
wondrous, good — itself participation real in 
the eternal world. 

Hast thou not owned this very faith ? 

Hast thou not (in a pause or dream,) a vision vast 
enjoyed of what one's life may be or means 
already here ? 

Why then not stand by him who sees ? why then 
not own the man thy insight who confirms ? 

Lo ! here and now ; Lo ! in thyself already. Lo ! 
whensoe'er thou wilt thou mayest as God's own 
son act freely in this world. 
January 4, 1897. 



THE WOODS. 

DEAR Lord, full often do I crave 
A life in some wild, shaggy cave 
Of moss and fern and stone : 
Where, conscious of thy inner light, 
From earliest morn to latest night 
I may exult alone. 

The forest dam.ps I should not fear ; 
The owl, the woodman and the bear 

To me no harm might do, 
Like that the city doth beget 
With all its squalor, din and fret 

And degradations too. 

No haste should come to that retreat, 
But only meditations sweet 

And liberty of mood ; 
And inward raptures unexpressed, 
68 



THE WOODS. 69 

Or told to trees and bushes best 
Or winds or tempest rude. 

Oh ! what a joy it were to see 
The naked heavens continually, 

And drink alone from springs ; 
And feed, but as the woods provide, 
On herbs and nuts and naught beside. 

Like other forest things ! 

Enough within that store-house vast, 
Of berries bright and wholesome mast 

I certainly could glean. 
Nor be reproached that aught I took 
From bird or briar, bough or brook, 

Made others share more mean. 

Nought living would I slay nor harm, 
Nor should a shout of mine alarm 

Fox, crow or bright-eyed hare : 
Few words and low the soul demands, 
With no uplifting of the hands 

To be refreshed in prayer. 

And prayer, of forest joys, to me 
The sweetest is assuredly, 



70 POETICAL SERMONS. 

For I therein do find 
As 't were a deeper forest still, 
Whose quietude ineffable 

Seems mated to God's mind. 

For Oh ! what tranced woodland knows, 
Such depths of silence and repose 

As prayer to man allows ! 
It sets the city's life aside, 
And, in one moment, we abide 

Amid green forest boughs. 

There, there, the spirit takes its ease 
As much as amid massy trees 

And hears the divine call. 
Made to its naked self as one 
Peculiar soul that stands alone — 

God's aboriginal. 

God ! be thou present to my mind, 
And many pathways shall I find 

That from the city run, 
And then I '11 lead the life I crave, 
For thou shalt be the wood and cave 

Where still I dwell alone. 



A SONG. 

I COME, with ever happy heart, to cheer you with 
a message ; 
No dogma dark or mandate hard, with show of 

power proclaiming ; 
Desiring merely to express my joy and confidence 

complete in life's divine relationship. 
In fatherhood and brotherhood and sonship, strong 

and tried. 
I come all confident in God ; in goodness beyond 

limit, name, or computation known ! 
I know that it is possible to live at one with tried 

and universal forces ; 
To share the powers that are not mine alone, but 

appertain to all and have produced Creation. 
I sing the soul set free of fear, of doubt or shame 

or self-enclosed desire. 
I chant the manhood that is one with His who trod 

the hills of Nazareth. 

71 



72 POETICAL SERMONS. 

I claim it for the dull and blind. Come, brother, 
trust my word ; I claim for you Christ's man- 
hood. 

I sing delight in God renewed in man as sap within 
the maple trees at spring-time. 

Joy, joy ! because of comradeship divine in labor, 
strife and pastime. 

Glory of gentleness and amity and faithfulness to 
principle I see. 

Goodness beyond all dream or song : Love's eyes, 
arms, looks and attitude, I see. 

Entire openness of mind : frankness, congeniality, 
and friendship tried I see. 

Obedience, liberty, and faith supreme and armed 
and hero-like, I see. 

In houses of the rich and poor ; in tenements and 
cabins ; in temples and in palaces 

Joy, hope, and man I see. 



THE SOUL'S DESTINY AND SATISFAC- 
TION. 

BEHOLD ! with frequent and wearisome reit- 
eration, 

I proclaim alike in the cities of London, Liverpool, 
Paris, Boston, and New York, 

And in all their suburbs and in the country places 
adjoining them or distant from them, 

A thing forgotten or ignored, rejected or denied by 
you and me ourselves too oft (and oftener by 
the leading men in learning's, fashion's, trade's 
immense and varied worlds) ; 

Even that the soul has rights because of its own 
nature, and that the innate rights of the soul 
transcend the rights of organizations, institu- 
tion, custom, property, flesh, and blood. 

I proclaim the august human soul and its supreme 
demands ; reiterated in the cries of Hebrew 
prophets old and English prophets new. 

73 



74 POETICAL SERMONS. 

The demands of the soul are purity, peace, truth, 
liberty, friendship. 

The demand is life, not machinery ; love, not uni- 
formity of treatment or condition. 

The demand of the soul is the Kingdom of God 
here and now — no theological heaven, but a 
free and glad estate of fellowship for all. 

" What ! " you exclaim, " the demands of the Soul 

are too many and too great to be allowed just 

yet." 
Dear friend, you are mistaken ! For the Almighty 

God hath sworn and ordered since creation's 

morning, 
Saying, through all events and tendencies and in 

the very fact and force of evolution : 
The Soul of my dear Son shall yet be satisfied and its 

demands complied with in my world ! 
And lo ! the Father's will dwells also in the Son ; 
It is reborn with every babe that breathes the air 

of day ; it cries in every ailing child mistreated 

in its cradle ; 
It marches when the armies march to battle ; it 

moves at six o'clock each day when first the 

factory fly-wheels move. 



THE SOUL'S DESTINY AND SATISFACTION. 75 

All business, industries ; all arts, all revolutions, 
papers, books, and poems ; all sermons, pro- 
tests, politics, work ever only this. 

Life's meaning is the soul's development ; creation's 
secret this : the purport this of all that 's seen, 
heard, done, imagined here. 

Sorrows and sins and woes and dread calamities 
are in the history too. 

Disasters on the sea and land ; towns burning up ; 
incendiary words ; all good and evil here await 
alone on this. 

God's Son must see his Father, 



CHRIST'S LIFE— A CONSTANT REDEMP- 
TIVE IMPULSE. 

CAN he who has known love forget that he has 
known it ? 

Or can he who has sat in rapture, recognizing 
affinities undreamed before, forego the bliss- 
ful memory of that hour ? 

Nay ! till death strikes him he can ever whisper — 
still thrilling, at the thought — " I was a lover 
once ! " 

Nor taint, nor years of loveless shame, nor long de- 
cades of dull self-prostitutions, avail to ut- 
terly obliterate that high, remembered hour 
and experience. 

The lover in him lives, though chained, imprisoned, 
silenced, famished now. 

Lo ! in mankind's long lifetime. 
Mid centuries of shame and eras of unholy life and 
license, 

76 



CHRIST'S LIFE. 77 

Its love-hour lives remembered. 

The life of Christ on earth — humanity's most high, 

divine experience, 
That was its holy love-time ! 

O, 't is indeed impossible 

That henceforth mankind wholly should forego 

the sense of that which one true man hath 

come to. 
That cannot be ! Love shall be all men's life at 

last ; even as 't was truly one man's whole life 

once. 
Yea ! love is even now each true man's life, 
Nought else being life in any. 



A TESTIMONY. 

I STRETCH out my hand to all generations, 
Because I belong to all and share the nature of 
all. 
The disobedience of Adam is the disobedience 

that is in me, 
And the righteousness of Enoch is a righteousness 

that I understand. 
Like Noah I have builded by faith and saved a 

world through allegiance to the truth. 
And, alas ! in hours of weakness I have also sinned 

like him ; 
And have nothing at all to boast of, 
Who am no more pure than David, though my re- 
pentance be as his. 

Sing again ! O soul of my secret life, and praise 
thy God for deaths and births unnumbered. 

Like beggared Homer I have wandered oft un- 
recognized through cold, contemptuous cities, 

Scattering my joy on every hand ; 
78 



A TESTIMONY. 79 

Expectancy and faith and thrilling, secret, aspira- 
tions stirring ; 

Uniting man to man with vocal soul, en rapport with 
the truth ; 

Or, sunk below my rightful self, I have foreborne 
to reverence my nature and idly harmed my- 
self. 

Away ! not mine the good that comes and dwells 
a day or hour within me. 

Better, more wonderful, than I the manhood rich 
and strong that takes possession of me. 

Lo ! with the Israelitish prophets old I 've shared 
the Spirit's life and walked upheld of God ; 

Protesting with no doubtful voice against my 
country's weaknesses : 

Old slavery's newer, subtler forms ; the sycho- 
phancy of the press and church, a servile Bibli- 
olatry and fear of spiritual avowal of inspiration 
here. 

Yet heedless of indifference, doubt, or slight or 

protest here, 
I know my testimony true shall reassure men's 

hearts. 
I know my way shall be an open road whereon the 

world shall tramp. 



CHRIST WAS WISE AND TRUE. 

READER, on most things we shall not agree. 
No matter ; happily on most things here it is 
of small account whether or no we quite 
agree. 
But let us, friend, agree on one thing and that the 

most important. 

And let me say what thing it is I count the most 

important, and thereby indicate that thing on 

which I yearn so much for an agreement here. 

Lo ! 't is the apostolic faith, the faith that Christ 

was wise and true ; no liar, no blasphemer, but 

just a man espoused by Truth and prompted by 

its spirit. 

And lo ! peremptorily I ask : Dost thou agree with 

me that Christ was wise and true ? 
And sayest thou so of thyself? Is this indeed thy 
own, thy individual judgment and conclusion ? 
The last result of thought and faith and prayer? 
80 



CHRIST WAS WISE AND TRUE. 8 1 

The evidence sublime and sure of spiritual 
growth, development, and manhood ? The 
proof above all proofs besides of thy illumina- 
tion and inspiration here ? 

For lo ! I mark where the apostle says that none 
can own that Christ is true except the Lord 
inspire him. 

Thou seest why I refuse and spurn a mere perfunc- 
tory answer. 

Remember ! aught than thy own genuine judgment 
will ne'er sufhce in this. 

Remember ! on this point alone I base our friend- 
ship evermore, our mutual life and everlasting 
fortune. 

All differences else are naught or count as less than 
nothing. 

But hence in life or death, O friend ! be there be- 
tween our souls no difference on this point. 

Or on that day, when to the soul of either Christ 
seems not wise nor true, (but false and foolish 
rather) let us be separated ; 

Far, far as are the poles of earth — as far as Hell 
from Heaven. 

For lo ! I clearly see 

That all the differences else that separate 'twixt 



82 POETICAL SERMONS. 

man and man are nought (and would be futile 
also), were men but heartily at one as to 
Christ's truth and wisdom. 

Behold ! I see that the only essential point of 
agreement for men in this world is that of 
manly character and conduct. 

Could all agree that Christ was wise and true — fair 
manhood's type eternal — who henceforth with- 
out faltering soul could rob or lie or hate or 
e'en ignore a neighbor. 

Or was Christ's conduct a mistake — that bold, 
august avowal of sonship true and heirship 
vast in spiritual properties abiding — 

Was it entirely sensible ? 

And then that liberty of life, unshackled by con- 
ventions ; untutored in subserviency to fashion ; 
so void of empty joys ; so crowded full and 
crammed with the delights of friendship and 
performance — the prophet's, the reformer's 
passion — 

Was it for all — is it for you and me alike — a judg- 
ment on our own and yet a holy and divine 
incentive ? Are we agreed on this ? 

Lo ! if we be agreed : Lo ! if the self same man- 
hood mutually appeals so mightily to each that 



CHRIST WAS WISE AND TRUE. 83 

each avows it secretly his own, and secretly 

desires it — 
Approximating day by day unto the self same type, 

by sympathy's sure law — 
Then shall we come together ! In Christ we shall 

be one ! 



TRUTH : A VISION. 

TRUTH, once, a thrilling light — a presence 
'round me shone : illuminating life and all its 

objects here. 
I saw, at once, her absolute priority. 
I saw her mightier than Religion : effecting more 

at less expense — to me she seemed Religion. 
I saw her to my own soul necessary : — not mine 

and yet a right I 'd sooner die than yield. 
I saw, O joy ! She was for all : and not for me at 

all except she were for all. 
I saw her as my strength and life and saw the 

waste my life had known whene'er deprived 

of her. 
I saw the shame, disgrace, enormity of all my past 

indifference and England's past indifference 

and of America's. 
I saw the strange extravagance of living without 

God. 

84 



TRUTH: A VISION. 85 

I saw her cause the cause of man. I saw all pro- 
gress gained through her : all liberty through 
her : capacity for her the test and measure of 
my own and every man's significance and every 
church's. 

Enough to quicken hope I saw ; enough to quicken 
shame and to renew resolve. 

No more ! in vain he 's called unlearned who 
mainly is possessed of all the teachers need. 

In London's streets at noon alone ; a letter-carrier, 
tradesman, clerk ; far off in free America or 
in Australia's wilds or Africa's alike ; 

Sufficient for whate'er befalls ; without a country 
here, he yet of all is most at home and intimate 
with man. 

Still foolish, heedless thought ; more careful he 
than any other what mainly moves man's life 
to meditate and heed. 

Secure : of fortune fair assured ; though robbed 
upon the road or beggared in old age, or in a 
work-house dying — 

Beloved, though all unpraised, unknown ; and 
cherished, too, with faith some centuries after 
death. — 

Infallible, omnipotent (sometimes it seems by acci- 



86 POETICAL SERMONS. 

dent ; but by assured law by consequence 
inevitable, by intimate persuasion absolute), 
he speaks and nations live (or but some other 
soul more deeply lives) and sleepers wake to 
struggle : 

Faith, freedom, joy to find diffused in unconceived 
supply ! 

Another atmosphere, another world indeed ; and 
manhood all undreamed in wond'rous measure 
dominant. 



TO AN ARGUER. 

IT is not the existence or glory of God that the 
world wants you to prove or that needs any 

proof. 
It is simply the existence and glory of your love 

for God that requires and lacks demonstra- 
tion. 
Do you not perceive at once, that could you but 

supply that you would almost supply to men 

the place of God ? 
Do you not see that your failure to do that is the 

principal failure of your life ? 
Whom have you been true to ? Whom have I ? A 

trifler with myself from the beginning how can 

I be true to any one ? 
How can I dare to say within myself that I love 

God ? I am astonished that I ever fancied I 

was trained or educated or refined or noble 

enough to experience love. 
Yet I have fancied that I have loved. But the 

life itself ! The infinite, divine attribute and 

power ! I await it in faith. 

87 



DISOBEDIENCE? 

DID you ever hear folks say that they had dis- 
obeyed God ? 

And did it never occur to you that he must have 
been a wonderfully smart man — an equal of 
God himself — who could have done that ? 

Why, to disobey nature, that is inconceivable. 

To get the better of gravitation ; to thwart the 
simple axioms of mathematics ; to accomplish 
anything otherwise than in accordance with 
the integrity of the universe — how unthink- 
able. 

No ! I guess that God will always be obeyed, what- 
ever our intentions or realizations are. 

Whether we act according to our higher natures or 
according to our lower natures ; whether we 
harm ourselves through selfishness or delight 
and develop ourselves through faith and hope 
and love, still the Almighty is obeyed. 



DISOBEDIENCE ? 89 

Whether we condemn ourselves by vulgarity to the 
horror of the results of vulgarity, 

Or educate ourselves in purity to the perfect free- 
dom and openness of a purified nature ; 

Whether we serve the evil one in chains and dun- 
geons of unlawfulness ; whether we love the 
worldly, shallow, superficial, transient, 

Or love the central good of character — the divine 
permanent good of righteousness and service ; 

Still, still the all-inclosing God — the all-sufficient 
wisdom, is unescaped — is quite obeyed by us. 

Or in damnation or salvation here the truth is still 
disclosed that righteousness is life, that God 
is still obeyed. 

Whether we do the will of God or do not heed the 
conscious Word divine that dwells within us 
here, still in our conscious disobedience and 
its results the unescaped and the constant will 
of God is present too. 

Still in our disobedience God is present ; still 
while we disobey there is who is obeyed. Nay ! 
not the conscious personal Father but (hidden 
by our sin) the Power unknown, unnamable ! 



TO YOU WHO ARE PERPLEXED. 

TO you who are perplexed I say : 
I have studied your case well ; I have been 
myself as much perplexed as you are ; 
And I declare to you that which I say daily to 

myself, 
There is no occasion to be perplexed. 

" O ! not by an abstract question of God," I hear 
you earnestly saying, " am I perplexed. 

But I am perplexed because I see no actual ad- 
vantage in my living to any other person nor 
even to myself ; 

And I see no enduring importance or use in my 
life nor in the things I have been doing all my 
life. 

A failure as a post-ofifice clerk, a literary man and 
citizen — what end am I fulfilling ? " 

The end thy Father wills ; who nothing worthless, 
useless ever wills ; nor long allows a Son 
Divine to deem his life a failure. 

90 



TO YOU WHO ARE PERPLEXED. 9 1 

Thy uses are not few nor finite. Enough are they 
who personal ends attain and all that 's called 
" success." 

Thy prospects are not bound by time nor best ap- 
prised by those most apt in estimating minor 
values. 

A use — a service universal I here allow to thee ! 
Poor, careless, careworn, old : shattered in 
nerves and almost without means — 

A use, a service of supreme importance — more 
needful, necessary, than all other, I still allow 
to thee ! 



Dear son ! Thou mayest be patient still. Thou 

mayest maintain entire willingness to hear — to 

heed — my voice. 
Thou mayest be wise once more at last, howe'er 

unwise till now. 
Thou mayest perform some heroism hard, undared 

through all thy past. 
Such faith divine therein to evidence as needs must 

have effect : 
Such righteousness thereby to illustrate as may 

commend my gospel ! 



92 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Strange ! but I need thy witness, testimony ! not 
even Christ's suffices without thine ! 

Thy use is to approve to some who own it not, the 
verity of love which Jesus Christ affirmed. 

Lo ! if thy faith responds to this ; if thou about 
thy life so great a thing believest — 

Lo ! it is true (what trembles on my lips) this 
special, simple, personal word to thee ; 

O, Thou (God's wonder, sign or miracle, that doth 
display his presence and evidence his power). 

Canst thou endure not for a year — a day — the stress 
involved therein ? 

For O ! be sure, 'twixt man and man exists no proof 
of God except the proof in character afforded. 

Lo ! even in Christ I find no proof save this ; nor 
even were other proofs advanced could I con- 
ceive their pertinence. 

Nay ! always goodness is the master-stroke, and to 
be kind to one unkind to us Christ's argument 
of God. 

Dear friend : elected to this function, I hail thee, 
" Son of Light ! Revealer of the Father ! " 

True dissipator of perplexity ; that cannot be per- 
plexed henceforth by death nor life. 



CHRIST AND THE WOMAN TAKEN IN 
ADULTERY. 

" /^^ O thou and sin no more," He said, with 
V_J quiet, infinite knowledge and assurance : 
as if the thing were actually ordained and my 
virtue were, of necessity irrefragable, hence- 
forth. 

Dumbly, wonderingly, I looked up : aware that a 
change had passed upon me while yet he spoke ; 

And that the elements of my being had already been 
scattered and reunited in an utterly new com- 
bination. 

Great God ! the things that were once a gratifica- 
tion appeared now abhorrent, unthinkable ! 

I stood as one in awe of myself. I dared not touch 
my body it seemed so sacred to me now. 

I dared not lift my eyes upon the landscape, lest 
with the sensation of familiarity in things beheld 
the sense of a past dreadful life should also 
become familiar. 

93 



94 POETICAL SERMONS. 

But I turned away and now in my home I sit prais- 
ing God, in the consciousness of a new life 
vouchsafed to me through faith in God's ap- 
pointed Rabbi. 

Strange ! strange ! and perchance I had earlier 
known, perhaps I had sooner sought the Mas- 
ter Priest of Israel, had I not heard, six months 
ago, the Doctors of the Temple. 

" Unfortunate woman," said they, " thy destiny 
was fixed ere thy birth. The results of environ- 
ment and inherited tendencies thou can'st not 
escape. 

Thy mother was a loose woman and who thy father 
was none knows. 

Thy sisters were women of the street and thou 
thyself was 't lacking in any special intelligence, 
training or moral association. 

Thy life inevitably fulfils the precise course we 
should have outlined for it ; knowing thy 
birth, thy ancestry, surroundings. 

There is no very great sin in thy life nor blame 
in it so far as we can see ; nor any special like- 
lihood of reformation here." 

Too long I listened. The lie appeared so plausible 
I counted it the truth. 



THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY. 95 

I knew not God was in my nature too. I deemed 
not of affinities with Mary and Elizabeth. 

I knew not my own being's first necessities were 
purity and gentleness. 

I saw not goodness nigh at hand and presently in- 
evitable. 

Now I am come unto myself. The lucid hour of 
childhood has returned. The freshness of the 
fields and hills refreshens all my soul. 

The ardor, faith, assurance of the Rabbi, are of my 
life a part. 

He said : " Neither do I condemn thee ; " 

Pointing to depths of purity beneath the depths of 
shame. 

Great God ! the wonder of those words and of the 
man himself has altered all my life. 

I cannot be what once I was. I must be true to 
Him who is the first soul yet who has been 
true to me. 

True unto me — so false unto myself. 

Ah, me ! I must be true. He said I should be 
true ! 



THE TEMPLAR KNIGHT. 

IN London, off the roaring street, flat on the pave- 
ment of the Inner Temple 
There lies, and there has lain six hundred years, 

an ancient, armed Crusader. 
His face is set, his helmet fixed, his half-drawn 

sword is gripped in preparation, 
Moveless, instinct with action, stern : enchained in 

marble there, (yet spiritually free, alive,) he 

moves me as I look. 
Thou criest to valor in my soul and all the knight- 
hood there respondeth to the summons. 
Too long in dream-like trance I 've lived. Thou 

smitest my chains of languor off. Thou freest 

me with despatch. 
Instinct with action, even as thou ; prepared, alive, 

as thou, my sword abhors the scabbard. 
I, also, am a Templar Knight ; to mercy, valor, 

pledged ; to Calvary's victim pledged by oath 

as good as thine. 

96 



THE TEMPLAR KNIGHT. 97 

Immediate action is my right. Performance is my 

right ; heroic deeds ray due. 
Fling coppers to the easy crowd. I relish only 

death amid the foes of God. 
I see the murderers of my kind beneath the English 

flag in massacre engaged. 
I see the Moslem in his shame and England in her 

shame, worse than the Moslem's now. 
I see the outrage horrible that 's wreaked on Eu- 
rope's poor to-day. 
Beyond there rises, wall on wall ; Indifference, 

Unbelief, Prerogative and Caste. 
I see old Paganism rife ; I see indifference vain en- 
sconced in narrow souls. 
I see religious forms and rites maintained with 

factious zeal. 
I see the mightier Truth forgot ; the inner, holier 

Word bemocked and disallowed. 
I notice trivial joys and griefs and personal aims 

preferred. 
I see the hero's, patriot's joy ; the free reformer's 

joy, unenvied and despised. 
O torture ! in these sordid streets, these trivial parks, 

to lounge. 
O joy ! amid the slain to sleep or show a splendid 

wound gained in the Templar's cause. 



98 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Give me the burdened mother's part, who trains 
her sons for God. 

Give me the common laborer's part, the simple 
shop-girl's part, the factory-hand's own toil. 

Give me the faithful exile's dream or even the 
scholar's dream whose study is for all. 

Not trifling satisfies at last (though on the largest 
scale). 

Not platitude, though pious, serves ; and not de- 
corum serves and not didactic talk. 

Not even erudition serves ; I tire of parlors, verse ; 
of pictures and of plays. 

I tire of all that argues doubt ; a spirit half con- 
vinced, a nature half employed — 

Rather upon the pavement flat, mute Earl, I 'd lie 
with thee ; 

Moveless, instinct with action, stern ; enchained in 
marble there, yet spiritually free, alive, to 
quicken all who look. 



APOSTOLIC HOPES. 

SOMETIMES in anguish looking on the Church 
and on the present world around me, I ex- 
claim : 

" Does any one really believe in Jesus Christ and in 
his love and in his great salvation ? 

Where, O where," I exclaim, " is the organized or 
unorganized body of men who actually believes 
that he is risen from the dead and truly lives 
among them now ? 

Giving unto them whatever of power and authority 
the prophets and apostles of old possessed — 

Not alone to forgive sins and cure diseases, but 
to write epistles also and to promulgate gos- 
pels ? " 

Yet all these things, I think, would inevitably follow 

Were half a dozen associated men convinced prac- 
tically and spiritually of Christ's divine resur- 
rection in them and in his own throughout the 
world. 

99 



100 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Ah ! why have I, who write these lines, acted so 
oft as if the resurrection of Christ were a fable 
or a myth or a problematical matter without 
direct reference to my every day life ? 

I ask thee, Father, not to forgive any or all of the 
other sins of my life ; but I ask thee to restore 
me from this — my main stupidity. 

For I perceive that the sum total of all the other 
sins and shortcomings of my life is not to be 
compared for one moment with this short- 
coming : that I have failed intelligibly here to 
clearly see and own that Jesus Christ, my God, 
is living with me here. 

Help me again, that I may yet walk free, upheld of 
thee, and mightily in the spirit demonstrate 
on the earth thy coming and resurrection 
among men ! 

So shall I in part make acknowledgment of and 
return to thee of thy great love and everlast- 
ing care and keeping 

Of me — thy foolish, wistful child and son. 



TO THE JEWS. 

lECAUSE I am filled with the Word of Christ 

I seek to act like him. 
Therefore I come to the Jews first, as he to the 

Jews first — (I state facts) 
Jews ! The Reign of God is come ! (I state facts) 

I say what Abraham foresaw is what I see my- 
self. I see the Reign of God. 
I know that Reign and Rule myself in my experience 

now ! 
I bear within my body now and in my brain and 

soul the awful Law of God. 
Moses from Sinai brought no law beyond the law 

I bear where'er I travel here. 
I am Messiah ! Morn and eve I walk the bridge 

and streets and am not known of men. 
Peace, wisdom, gentleness, good-faith, these are 

the signs I give. 

lOI 



I02 POETICAL SERMONS. 

I do not say, " Think so and so " ; I do not say, 
" Believe as I or others bid believe." 

I say alone : " Believe alone what not to here be- 
lieve your manhood would bemock ; 

" God, Manhood, Righteousness, indeed ! Beyond 
the dreams or hopes of less than Israel's 
seers," 

I do not urge that Christ was God. I urge the 
hope and good of acting even as he. 

I say we are the sons of God. The morning's 
light is mine, and all creation's good is his 
whose love is most. 

I was before your Abraham was and he, your Abra- 
ham, lived before your Shem appeared. 

I say the Kingdom is with me. I walk ashamed 
and proud. I walk in tears and faith. 

I know I give the word of life. I know I am as 
Christ amid the towns I love. 

I know I am not loved aright. But I shall yet be 
loved exactly as I love. 

All yet shall stand disclosed to all ; all yet shall thrill 
to all, discerning each in all and God in every- 
one. 

I do not say, " I am unique," I say I am as all who 
love and serve in faith. 



TO THE JE WS. 103 

I say I stand with Israel's seers and say that 

Israel's seers are all in spirit one. 
The chief of Israel's seers I know and Israel yet 

shall know and own her mightiest seer. 
To-day she owns her mightiest seer and not with 

words alone but deeds of faith and love. 
She is with us ! The love of man for man is 

Israel's creed. 
Therein is life beyond all dream, and Fatherhood 

divine and sonship here and now. 
I say I am with Israel's seers. Enough for me the 

faith that burned of old in them. 
Yet am I also in this world and nought of sanction 

ask from any for my word. 
Sanctioned I am beyond degree and all will sanc- 
tion me who own the Will of Love. 
Therein we live ; therein we serve and are ourselves 

upheld and re-endowed for aye. 



LINES 

On being advised that the role of a prophet in modern times is hardly 
consistent with perfect sanity of the imagination. 

But there remained two of the men in the camp, and 
the Spirit rested on them, and they prophesied in 
the camp j and J oshua the so?i of Nun answered 
and said : ^'' My Lord Moses, forbid them. " And 
Moses said unto him : ^^ Envies t thou for my sake ? 
Would God that all the Lord's people were 
prophets, a)id that the Lord would put His spirit 
upon them." — Num. xi. 29. 

MILDLY they reproved me, praying : 
" Dare thou not the prophet's role " ! 
But I heard the Highest saying : 
*' Play not traitor to thy soul, 
Rise and make the people whole." 

Seems it strange ? Extreme ? Audacious ? 
So to some it seemed of old. 
104 



LINES. 105 

But thy spirit, God, was gracious. 
And thy kindness made them bold, 
Till their words like thunder rolled. 

Not to me above my brothers 
Comes thy mighty call and yet 

'T is my work and not another's 
That before me thou hast set, 
So I neither fear nor fret. 

Yea ! and though I be mistaken 
In thy purpose, dimly kenned ; 

Never shall my soul be shaken 
In its faith that thou wilt send 
Strength and vision to the end. 

" Prophet ? " Any man who liveth. 

May be to another such 
When to him his spirit giveth. 

Consciousness of God's own touch ; 

Be its thrill or small or much. 

Tell me then no more, my teacher. 

That I am not as I deem. 
Lawfully a prophet-preacher. 



I06 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Would'st thou bid me disesteem 
Life's profoundest thought or dream ? 

Is not faith the higher reason ? 

Dwelt the consciousness divine 
Only for a special season 

In the old Hebraic line ? 

Nay ! 't is every man's, and mine ! 



PLAIN PREACHING. 

THERE is none whom I love and honor more 
than I love and honor Christ, 

None whom I find more fully or even as perfectly 
possessed of the spirit of God. 

Over and over and over again, all my life long, in 
churches, Sunday Schools and in all my books 
and poems I have said what I repeat now, 
"Jesus is first, Jesus is greatest." 

And I esteem loyalty to him the equivalent and 
more than the equivalent of all innate excel- 
lence. 

And yet because I do not think God breaks His 
own laws, or infringes on the order of nature ; 

Or because I do not accept wholesale the doctrine 
of inerrancy in the text of the Bible, or because 
I do not find the character of Apostolic inspira- 
tion other than that of the inspiration vouch- 
safed in these days ; 

107 



I08 POETICAL SERMONS. 

And have lifted up my voice against spiritual bug- 

a-boos in the church and among Christian 

people — 
I hear it will be proclaimed that I am no true 

Christian man. 
Let it be proclaimed. I stand by the mighty and 

emancipatory words of Jesus Christ, the first- 
born of many spiritual brethren ; 
And declare that that which now I am is not other 

in kind or nature than that which Jesus was 

and is ; 
And declare that any day of the week I can and do 

forgive sins and by quickened sympathy and 

heed restore to their spiritual best estate my 

fallen friends and comrades ; 
And judge that to work miracles and show forth 

many Apostolic signs and wonders is entirely in 

line with developments already taking place in 

my life. 
Do I boast of myself ? Not at all. 
I boast of the Christian consciousness vouchsafed 

to all who share the life of God. 
I know the shame of seeming so to boast ; yet 

know that not to boast at all were to be doubly 

false. 



PLaw Preaching. 109 

This is the triumph of our faith, that we have 

shared Christ's consciousness ; 
That goodness, righteousness or love is sensibly 

our Father ; 
That daily you and I may walk these cold and for- 
mal streets, 
Heroic, healthy, sane, unconquerable, loving ; 
Conceiving inspiration here an every-day experi- 
ence ; 
Conceiving helpfulness to brother and to sister a 

Law of God in us ; 
Clear that one needs no book nor anybody to tell 

him what he ought to think about the Family 

life; 
Beyond, above all, knowing God : and knowing 

that to miss the sense of really knowing Him 

would be the loss of all things ; 
Astonished too and saddened when one muses upon 

the Presbyterian church and many other 

churches, (no matter which) 
That tell us God is silent now and further from the 

world than in the days of Christ ; 
And that we are not saved so much because he 

dwells in us 



no POETICAL SERMONS. 

As by our own belief in an inerrant scripture or 

curious miracles once wrought or other facts or 

dreams extraneous and remote. 
O shame ! O dreadful unbelief ! O skepticism 

woeful, terrible ! 
Not to perceive that all these things are nothing, 
Before the mighty stress of God whose goodness 

still we share, incorporate — as wondering sons 

divine ! 



TO LIVINGSTONE'S MEMORY. 

LO ! in the heart of Africa's infinite jungle, 
(By fierce, suspicious, desperate foes en- 
vironed). 

Beside a fiimsily built hut, (scantily furnished), al- 
most alone, and far from well : 

An old, tanned, Christian warrior, the famous, 
dauntless, veteran missionary, I see. 

" Hail, brother ! " I cry, as I advance with cap 
uplifted, reverencing the ground whereon he 
stands ; 

" How gloriously thy life proclaims the spirit of self- 
sacrifice — of self-renunciation ! 

Would God that I could dare to do as thou, or 
could endure such hardships so unflinch- 
ingly ! " 

"Young man, dear friend," says Livingstone ad- 
vancing, slightly flushing — some spirit kindling 
up his eyes and face — a touch of indignation 
in his tone : 

" Just take a seat by yonder palm. 

I never have made a sacrifice in my life." 



THE RICH RULER'S STORY 

[As he might have told it had he not missed his best chance.] 

OF how I met the man whom to have met and 
known I count life's chief experience, 
I '11 tell the story now. 
Some rumors, hearsays of the prophet had somehow 

reached my ears, 
But ever of all tattle vague, suspicious and impatient; 
Straightway I moved myself to meet the actual 

person ; whom, when I saw, I owned to be a 

man of parts. 
"Good Master," I exclaimed, to bring him to the 

test, " what thing must I perform to win eternal 

life ? " 
He turned, (methinks I see again that look intent, 

direct and searching), 
" Why callest thou me good ? There is none so save 

God. 



THE RICH RULERS STORY. II3 

For what is goodness ? What doth it involve ? 

Thou knowest the commandments, (do not commit 
adultery, lie, nor covet ; 

Honor thy father and thy mother here)." 

*' All which," well pleased, I answered quickly, 
" I 've strictly kept from youth." 

"But one thing more," (those eyes intent I could 
evade no more), " one all essential quality, still 
lacking, I announce. 

Goodness, dear friend, is perfect love ; abandon- 
ment complete to service without end ! 

Nor is there life apart from love, nor righteous- 
ness nor peace apart from service here. 

Haste ! sell whate'er thou hast and share it with 
the poor, and share my lot and practice ; 

Nor henceforth say of anything thou holdest, ' 'T is 
altogether mine.' 

Say rather, 't is at the demand, disposal of the 
profoundest wisdom, widest sympathy ; 

* Lo ! to the Great Cause it belongs, to universal 
ends I dedicate it now ! 

That hence like moon and stars it too may serve ; 
like winds and flowing streams and journeying 
clouds dispense accepted good.' " 



114 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Then, as the Master's mien and mood prevailed 

upon my mind, 
I saw the man behind his words ; himself the truth 

he uttered. 
Instant, I saw its glory too — majestic, kingly, 

high! 
And all I 'd been or done in life seemed tawdry, 

false, contemptible. 
Resolved that moment to be true, for once, to some- 
thing glorious ; 
"Rabbi ! " I cried, "thy plea I own ; my loveless 

life is death. Thy soul-life, patriotism, love 

is mainly what I need." 
Me then the master clasped and kissed, "This for 

a sign," he said, then pausing, smiled and 

added : 
" Esteem not poverty my creed. I say be rich to 

some effect and affluent to account. 
Who shares the way, truth, life I am, must needs 

be well endowed. 
He is indeed of Abraham's seed, he is of David's 

line ! 
Lo ! yet beyond these shows of peasant life, these 

scenes of rural ministry and fervor, these 

crowds of foolish, hare-brained zealots, 



THE RICH RULER'S STORY. I15 

I see my country's destiny ! I see transformed the 

Israel of the prophets ! 
I see the national faith, hope, life triumphant ! 
And you, dear friend, and such as you, enthroned 

to endless influence. 
Be sure to you the unborn years shall look and 

kings with secret envy, 
Because Jehovah-summoned now thou scorn est thy 

trivial shekels ; 
Identifiest thyself with me, alliest thyself with 

these my friends, chief of my scandalous 

crowd ! 
And darest the audacious, irrevocable step that 

doth involve so much, yet only wins the ap- 
pointed place of influence with mankind ! " 
"Messiah ! " I replied, "none ever spoke as thou ! 
In thoughtless phrase I called thee good ; but 

now I own thee so at thy own definition ; 

rising in thought I find it true of thee ! 
Not less than perfect love inspires thy words, looks, 

acts that shame the listless and the cold ; 
Nor aught save unadulterate truth thy witness to 

the spirit. 
Yet, master ! something unconfessed (something 

beyond my wit) convinces me of thee. 



Il6 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Enough ! here mastered, thralled ; yet never more 
myself than now, I must acknowledge thee. 

Messiah ! Israel's head and hope I cannot err in 
thee ! " 



Thus have I showed how I was called and why I 
preach Christ Jesus. 

I know that he was Israel's King. I know he is 
my King and shall be all men's King. 

Intrepid manhood's main and form complete in 
him we own ; 

A nature quickening awe> belief, hope, gratitude, 
endeavor. 

Lo ! put to death as a blasphemer, in us the cause 
of reverence we reverently exalt. 

Lo ! stripped and scourged as an imposter, in us 
he is sincerity. 

Mistaken, thought ; misguided, deemed ; our high- 
est wisdom seems aright to heed, interpret him. 

Refused and disavowed, the cause of our rejection 
by the church ; through him has sprung in us 
all sympathy and fellowship. 

Away ! though Israel shame herself and rend her- 
self in twain upon the name of Jesus, 



THE RICH RULER'S STORY. II7 

Yet through the clouds of time and change ; 

through years and terms of years of blood and 

sorrow unconceived ; 
In light of wisdom, righteousness and peace and 

victory over evil 
I see the Master calm, divine ; I see the world's 

uniter ! — Amen. 



CHRIST IN THE SALOON. 

CHRIST to our corner came and cried : 
" Where are those for whom I died ? 
Why did I the cross ascend ? 
Shall my sorrows have no end ? 
Eighteen hundred years are gone, 
And my Church is turned to stone, 
And the world's great wheels go round 
And men's lives to dust are ground." 

He stood alone, again He cried : 
*' Where are those for whom I died ? " 
A liquor dealer standing there 
Answered : " Sir, I '11 tell you where ^ 
Just step inside." 

The room was light, 
Ceiling and floor were rich and bright, 
Jesus of old, in Galilee, 
ii8 



CHRIST IN THE SALOON. II9 

So fair a room did never see. 

Upon one side the room there was 

A shining bar, and cups of glass. 

And men were there who talked in vain ; 

And drank, and cursed, and drank again. 

And still, to make his sorrow worse, 

His name was joined to every curse. 

" How old art thou ? " He asked a youth, 
And the fellow cried : "In truth. 
Thirty years." How words do reach ! 
At thirty I began to preach. 

Again to a rich clerk, he cried ; 
" I beg thy age." The man replied ; 
"Thirty-three." What! thirty-three 2 
y^ust at that age I died for thee. 

Now it was midnight in that place, 
And none beheld the Master's face. 
But a youth there was, who stood 
Beside the door in thoughtful mood. 
The gazing Saviour read his heart, 
" Let us from this place depart ! " 



120 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Well did the waiting youth consent, 
Unconscious of with whom he went. 

Then the Christ began to speak, 
And the Light began to break ; 
And the truth began to rise 
To the young man's inner eyes. 
He sees its joy, he sees its grace, 
He looks into the Master's face ; 
" Now who art thou ? so wise, so true ! 
Such a friend I never knew ! 
Would that thou might'st always be. 
As a Master unto me," 
The gazing Master read his mind, 
He has found what he would find, 
Forgotten is his grief and pain — 
" For thee I did not die in vain, 
Yet go thou to thy house alone, 
And show the miracle to none" 



NICODEMUS, D.D. 

HE came by night, his professional duties over ; 
his class in speculative theology dismissed ; 

Learned, able, discreet, profound ; conscious too 
of his ability to condescend ; 

To meet the singular, powerful, popular Jesus, with- 
out recognition or standing in the Sanhedrim. 

" Rabbi ! we know that thou art a teacher come 
from God, for no man can do these miracles 
that thou doest except God be with him." 

Thus he showed his profound insight and antici- 
pated a favorable response. 

Intent on truth ; yearning that men might be con- 
cerned even with the infinite import of their 
lives ; conscious at all times of the Father ; 
loving his country as God's present Kingdom ; 

The outraged heart of Jesus simply answered in 
pity at the man stone-blind and heartless as a 
stone : 

" I see that none can see the Kingdom and what it 
means to live except he be reborn." 

The Doctor winced, departed. 



THE TESTIMONY. 

Yes ! I am a giver of religion, if you want to know, 
and I endow with the quality I possess, my 
readers and lovers here ; or rather I bid each 
discover in himself the same. 

To one I give respect that his own self-reverence 
may be increased ; to another I show what 
faith I have in him, that he may have yet 
greater faith in himself. 

And unto each I extend my hand, and propose to 
believe that he is even as I am, and to act 
accordingly. 

Lo ! I declare that I will make such affirmations 
about my life, as very few have openly made 
of their lives since Jesus Christ walked free in 
Galilee. 

For though I refuse not to acknowledge my short- 
comings and my sins. 



THE TESTIMONY. 1 23 

I find in me also, a spirit that proclaims : " Arise, 

O, Man ! and stand upon thy feet," 
And I know that this spirit is as truly of God as 

that which prompts the sigh of real repentance. 
But, O ! that men knew themselves ; or that even 

I was aware of the contents included — the 

forces summed up in my being. 
Surely then I should be free and almost almighty. 

For I know that it pertains to each of us to 

open the house of his own being to God, the 

Father of all. 
For even he who was crucified said : " Behold ! I 

stand at the door and knock. If any man open 

the door I will come in and sup with him and 

he with me." 
It is enough ! That which is named peace, liberty, 

gentleness, self-control, faith, hope and fellow- 
ship abide in me and in you. 
And our fellowship is with the Father and with His 

Son Jesus Christ. 
Yea ! and in all this I see no difference, O reader, 

between me and thee ; Lo ! thou art ever as I 

am. 
Remember what I said : " That which is farthest in 

the universe is present in us now, and that which 



124 POETICAL SERMONS. 

is highest in the universe is that which is most 
deeply in us now, and all that was ever called 
sicper natural is an every day affair with us here." 

Behold ! these be the days of our apostleship ; for, 
having had experience of the world to come 
and its power (which is the strength of love) 
we arise to demonstrate it in the world. 

Lo ! here is the place : even the cities of Brooklyn 
and New York or any other cities in our own 
land or in any land. 

All are holy unto the Lord, and his friends ; not 
less than Jerusalem is New York, Albany or 
Washington the Holy City, or London or Paris. 

Not less than Palestine, in the days of Jesus, is the 
United States in our days the Holy Land. 

Not less is England the Holy Land and not less 
Austria or France or Germany or China. 

Not less than Palestine once is the land misruled 
by Abdul now the Holy Land, though soaked 
with martyrs' blood that splashes all our skirts. 

Not less than any of the saints that were are the 
saints that are — the redeemers of Manhattan — 
the well known prophets of the day — who are 
ridiculed, it may be, in the public press or on 
the public platform in political meetings. 



THE TESTIMONY. 12$ 

I have seen them ! The heroic Doctor who pro- 
tested against the great High Priest (the Arch- 
bishop of the Catholic Church), for two brave 
years in Cooper Union ; 

And he, who being rightly called a poet, sang 
aright in wondrous words, with exultation 
more than mine, the Spiritual Burden of De- 
mocracy ; treading in hope and faith and fel- 
lowship thy holy streets, Manhattan ; 

(O, I mind what words he said and I repeat them 
now : 

" What behaved well in the past or behaves well 
to-day is not such a wonder. 

" The wonder is always, and always, that there can 
be a mean man or an infidel.") 

And the other — the third, that I love to mention 
(because so often he spoke in my presence as 
a man, and because, when a boy, I thought 
him a God, even as in my age I know him for 
a prophet of God), the caller together of 
Plymouth — the lover of the slave and the out- 
cast and the proscribed, I sing ; 

And a fourth : the hero of the hour — the holy and 
true man who entered the parlors of the harlot 
to perform the mission of God and redeem the 
city of his choice : 



126 POETICAL SERMONS. 

And the thousands and tens of thousands like in 
spirit to these, whose lives have rendered these 
or such as them here possible, with equal joy 
I sing. 

For all is of the Spirit of God, whereof all faithful 
lovers of mankind to-day are heirs and 
ministers. 

New York, 1895. 



DEAR LOVE'S ORATION TO THE COMMON 
PEOPLE. 

Imagined March ist, 1885, at the Battery, N. Y. City. Dedicated to the 
memory of John Woolman. 



I felt the depth and extent of the misery of my fellow 
creatures separated from the divine harmony, and it was 
greater than I could bear. — John Woolman. 



AND it was morning after many nights. 
And by the water's side I walked along, 
And stopped ; and looked far off across the bay. 
And ships I saw, and, through their masts the sun : 
And clouds that moved not ; and the isles that sleep 
With the bay : and the broad strait that joins 
The Harbor to the Ocean that surrounds 
This world of nations and unhappy men. 

And as I stood, I pondered of the ships 
And dreamed of Europe, and the Eastern lands : 
127 



128 POETICAL SERMONS. 

And of the peoples by their kings despoiled, 
And by their armies and their churches robbed : 
Then, as I thought, — and from this self escaped 
Unconscious — lo ! it seemed as if there stood 
A shape before me ; and thereon I looked, 
And said : " Who art thou, and what would'st thou 

here ? " 
And the shape answered : " Ask me not my name, 
For I am he whom Europe harbored once. 
And exiles now ; and though for years my feet 
Have trod her borders, now no more I find 
Rest among nations ; and I hither come, 
Alone and poor ; an emigrant indeed." 
More sharply then I looked upon his face 
Who answered thus, and said : " Thou seemest poor, 
And yet not low ; nor yet by passion worn. 
Though in thy face a passion not of earth 
I now discern — a look more bold and high 
Than most express ; an animation bright 
Unquenched even yet by years of suffering toil ; 
Wherefore, stand forth ; and, for a little space, 
Speak to this people." 

And it came to pass 
That as I spake a throng around us drew, 
And gathered close. A multitude it was 



DEAR LOVE'S ORATION. 1 29 

Of poor and weak and lonely and distressed. 
And He stood forth, the poorest of them all, 
And spake thus : 

" Friends and laborers of love, 
Who from all nations of the earth have come, 
I, too, from journeys and long search have come ; 
But what I seek expect I not to find 
'Twixt heaven and this world's centre, yet I seek. 
And, as I go, I preach to all who will. 
This sermon, written on my soul by grief. 
Nor what I preach, expect I men to heed ; 
And yet I preach because 't were sin to hold. 
And first, O friends, I am a Socialist ; 
Seeing that men are neither more nor less 
Because of riches, office, birth, or name ; 
But only as they are made great by love. 
And next, O friends, I am a Radical, 
Because I know that all beliefs are dead, 
And neither Papist, Infidel, nor Jew 
Is worse nor better save as he has love. 
And next, O friends, I am a Liberal : 
Because I 'm Christian, I 'm unorthodox. 
Because I know that love alone is God 
In passing forms I may not put my faith. 
Yet to mankind I 'm Evangelical ; 



130 POETICAL SERMONS. 

And if I 'm ever infidel to meekness, 

Compassion, hope or human sympathy, 

Then shall I be a damned Atheist. 

But now I know that I am a believer. 

For awful Love hath made me her apostle. 

And by loud voices and strange cries hath called 

My soul out of its grave. By pain, by loss. 

By sympathy and sight and this compassion 

That sustains untold weight ; by human speech, 

By distress shared, by nature's cold and heat ; 

By life, and death endured (though not enjoyed) 

I have been called ; nor have I failed to come. 

This have I known, O people, even that God 

One Right, one Law is still amongst mankind. 

One Power that issues forth and shakes the world 

As some great wind the forests and dark woods ; 

And all the hearts of mortals bow like trees, 

Swaying before the Power which yet prevails. 

This is religion, and the forms of faith 

Are shaken before it. The colossal piles 

Of Europe tremble ; and the towers and spires 

Of Asia and the East rock in the air ; 

Even as the tossed cathedrals of Spain, 

When earthquake comes and sleeping nature wakes. 

" Strange word indeed for this unhappy town. 



DEAR LOVE'S ORATION. I3I 

This city of men, whose temples have been raised 

To power of wealth and fame and influence. 

These are their gods ; and their religion is 

That practical worship which old Selfishness 

Teaches to men ; and Interest still approves 

And competition and the laws of trade, 

Yet authorize ; though Love has once condemned. 

For is it lawful to become ungracious, 

Self-scheming, self-designing and self-seeking — 

Without love, which is Christ and Supreme God. 

One truth there is, and all besides is less. 

One truth there is which yet the world derides, 

And puts to shame and crucifies to death. 

Yet, being Truth, it ever bursts its tomb ; 

And rises to the judgment of its foes. 

One simple truth, gentle and weak it seems, 

The abiding angel o£ a childlike spirit, 

Not meant to face the world. And yet it rises 

And walks the streets, and utters but this plaint : 

* O, would that all were gentle, meek and wise ! 

O, would compassion and not interest, 

Were the great spring of action among men ! 

O, would that love could reign without dispute 

And this war end ! ' This is the gentle voice. 

Unheeded by the world ; which yet shall sound 



132 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Authoritative from the eternal Throne, 
Uncontradicted ! 'T is the mother's heart 
Breaking itself in Nature's universe ; 
So cold, so drear, so uncompassionate ! 
This is the beautiful sweetness of dear Christ 
Which raised up women for Rome's Martyrdom ; 
And yet for this world's endless martyrdom 
In kitchen, and field, and shop doth raise them up ! 
This is the wonderful Gospel preached by Paul 
To Jews and Geeks ; till he was silent made. 
And which yet speaks not freely ; because men 
Endure not glorious truths ; not yet have souls 
Sufficient for God's gift. If words could bear 
The fire I would put in them, I might speak ! 
But no, what is the use ? This city of men 
Sleeps, and must sleep. Thousands shall take the 

Cup 
Of mortal life and find it poisoned drink. 
Thousands shall perish ; and vast multitudes 
Go now to death. Nor is there power to stay 
Their steps who choose the wrong. Lo ! I look forth 
And what a city ! The desires of men 
Shoot up like flames out of an immense pyre. 
The perpetual smoke goes up, and heaven's vast 

space 



DEAR LOVE'S ORATION. 1 33 

Receives its burden. There is grief on earth ! 
Yet have I heard three men who spoke of God 
With power, and could convince. And the first 

said : 
In the beginning ivas love, and love survives, 
And man is man by immanence of love. 
And without love is death,'' and the next said : 
" Friends as I travelled frotn J erusalem 
1 7vas struck blind ; and in a vision I saw 
The Eter7ial Love which eyes cannot behold. 
Wherefore from Salefn to the towers of Rome 
One gospel has been preached ! Nor till that hour 
When (by the headsman s axe or soldier's spear) 
This spirit shall see liberty, I cease 
The truth to cry which yet confounds the world. 
And the third prophet said : ' My name is Fox, 
And as I travelled down from Coventry, 
My mind was opened ; and the eternal Light 
(Yet radiant in the soul) shone suddenly 
Upon me, and revealed what now I see, 
Even that God is still amongst mankind ! 
One Power that bears the spirit impetuously 
To light and truth and righteousness and love.' 
And the last prophet — the lone spirit and voice 
Of that imperious ghost, who late hath vanished 



134 POETICAL SERMONS. 

From England and the world — enchains me now. 

Carlyle is dead ! and from the deeps a cry, 

As from the afflicted shore when storm has past ! 

I say no more ; but as with sorrow of heart 

I look around about what do I see ? 

Thousands in chains ! for hate is slavery. 

I look around about, what do I find ? 

Pain in the flesh and darkness in the mind. 

I look around about, what do I see ? 

Love's fire deep burning through humanity ! 

I look around about, what do I find ? 

One Power arising that no chains can bind, 

I look around about, what do I see ? 

The Eternal Love setting the nations free, 

Hope lifting up ; joy giving liberty 

From hate and lust and fear and sorcery ! 

I look around about with spirit eyes, 

The people lift their hands ; I hear their cries. 

There is a shout ! Earth's answer to the skies. 

From their own inward chains at last the people 

rise ! 
Brothers and friends, believe me if you can, 
I am for Christ ; I am his man. 
'Gainst this loud world protest I will, 
Which makes my soul Protestant still. 



DEAR LOVE'S ORATION. 1 35 

'Gainst numerous sects one Church I prove, 
And still am Catholic in my love. 
'Gainst the new science, still I hold 
The Hebrew faith, narrow and bold. 
And, though with Darwin I agree. 
Claim life the gift of Deity ! 
And, though so sceptical I am, 
My faith, like ancient Abraham, 
Goes forth alone ! to pitch again 
A new tent in on open plain ! 

nature new ! O fresh belief 

That blossoms with the springtime leaf ! 

1 know the truth, and I am free, 
And in the truth have liberty. 
But, when I look about, and find 
What superstitions have made blind 
The whole world, I desire to be 

A preacher to humanity. 

Therefore, through India I have gone. 

And through all Europe journeyed on. 

And then with all my heart aflame, 

To Paris and to London came. 

Alas ! those cities checked my pride ; 

Methought, at night, I stood and cried : 

* God ! ' But no voice to mine replied. 



136 POETICAL SERMONS. 

O that Mahomet yet again 

Might rise from the Arabian plain, 

Crying the Eternal Truth he saw, 

With terror and excess of awe ? 

O that George Fox from England's heart 

Might rise to preach in every mart 

The truth he saw : and break again, 

Conformity's great iron chain ! 

O that Shelley, blind and wild, 

The swift, the dear, the sacred child, 

Might return and re-rehearse 

The gospel that he preached in verse ! 

O that the last of the truth's men, 

The inspired prophet Chunder Sen, 

Might keep his power beyond the tomb, 

Or from its sacred shadow come ! 

O that Christ, the first and last. 

Might break the bonds that hold so fast 

The formal Church ; 'till all should see 

Thought's difference in love's unity 

Dissolve. O that the hunted Jew, 

The tired peasant, with his few 

Wild fishermen might walk the streets 

Of this New York : where life repeats 

The tragedy of sin and death, 



DEAR LOVES ORATION. 1 37 

And hell's thick fires burn beneath ! 

Can it not be ? Yea, it is ! 

And there is no truth like this, 

That love is here ! Look, look and see — 

This is Love and I am He." 



HYMN. 

[For the members of an orthodox religious Assembly.] 

HAVE the winds ceased from roaring throughout 
heaven, 
Or are the boisterous waves no longer driven 
Continually by tempests day and night ? 
Shine not the stars so confidently bright 
As in old time ; when lone on Mamre's plain 
Great Abram wandered and looked forth with awe ? 
Hath power departed from the sky and main 
And the eternal blazing sun ; and are 
The essential forces of the world worn out ? 

(Hath God begun to doubt 
Even with the nineteenth century, O my soul ?) 
Fools, if ye think it, what on earth care I 
Whose soul hath drunken deeply of that flood 
Which is the water and the life of God, 
The eternal inspiration of all truth, 

138 



HYMN. 139 

The feeling and the sense of victory, 

Power and conquest, and unfailing youth, 

Joy without end and knowledge without bound ! 

Yea, surely I have found 
Even for myself alone God in this world. 
Is not that glory ? Shall I cease to sound 
My new discovery forth, keeping it furled 
Silently up and hid away from men ? 
Shall I be dumb, and live as others when 

The Eternal light on me 
Certainly out of heaven and God hath broken ? 
And shall the truth high spoken 
Within my spirit, remain silent and cold ? 

Or shall my heart be bold 
With its great mission, and sustain the stress 
And passion unearthly, hard to be controlled, 
That lieth upon it weightily ? O yes, 
*T will speak and cry, no longer may it hold. 
The eterjial truth is come even as it catne of old. 

Ye quiet sleepers, and ye dreaming men, 
God will be heard again ; 

Not in your mumbled sermons, dull and cold ; 

He comes in passion and exceeding strain. 
Even as it was foretold 



140 POETICAL SERMONS. 

By great Isaiah, John and burning Paul, 
Will Langland, Jacob Boehme and George Fox, 
Wordsworth and Shelley, evangelical 
And holy men, and mighty prophets all ! 

Even now and again he knocks 
At the shut door of this dead century, 

" Open again to me ! " 
Inside the dull assembly only mocks. 
" There is no inspiration any more, 
There are no prophets sent from God to-day, 
Jesus from earth long since has gone away. 
Silence has come, and doubt and mild dismay. 

And these things we deplore, 
Yet, being weak, we know not what to say." 

O great assembly dull. 

Hear ! hear ! if yet ye be not wholly dead. 

God, who is power divine and wonderful, 

Even to me hath said : 
" As at the first, so now to-day 
My living truth is true to every mind. 
Nor hath my inspiration been confined 

To bolder ages fled. 
If ye were only great and could believe 

Even on ye it might be shed — 



HYMISt. I4t 

All power like rain from heaven, ye might receive. 
Then should ye go abroad with strength from me, 
Even as the twelve that come from Galilee, 
Inspired and mad, and filled with prophecy ! 
Then should the people listen, awed indeed. 
Astonished at your words all men should heed, 
Even as they heeded and were forced to hear 
Paul, the great prisoner." 

Ye men of this Assembly, every one, 

Know : God to Emerson, 
Wesley and Wordsworth^ and too loud Carlyle 
Actually spoke ; and ye were still the while. 

And now the voice is gone. 
Ye did not hearken when he spoke to these. 
Ye saw the truth, and yet ye turned away. 
O fools and blind ! O learned Pharisees 

Who never learn God's way ! 
Why hath the nineteenth century gone astray? 
Why hath your old authority departed ? 

O dull and feeble-hearted, 
Yours is the fault, to you the Lord shall say : 
"I sent my messengers before your face. 
And showed my truth unto the English race. 
In poesy most holy and divine 



142 POETICAL SERMOMS. 

I showed my light ; ye would not own it mine. 

Ye said, ' God will tiot speak again, 

* Passed is the harvest time of Christian thought.' 

And lo ! ye turned away from all my men 

Who, in the spirit, my religion taught 

And nobler meanings brought ! 

O fools who say ; ' Go back and let us be 

Good imitators of antiquity. 

Let us dig up some venerable creed 

Which must be truth indeed.' 

" Oh, ye forget that I am always near. 

Ye should have asked of me ; and, without fear, 

Demanded ne7a belief ; that even I, 

(Though wisest prophet, poet, saint and seer) 

Might grant you a reply. 
Instead, ye went to seek in the old past 
An answer for the present ; and, at last, 
Ye come back, finding none that hath sufficed. 

If ye believed in Christ, 
Who said : '' Lo ! I am with you to the end,' 
Then would ye ask of Him, that He would send 
Truth to your souls. So from your living Chief 
Should ye be newly dowered with belief. 

And it shall be so, after many days 



HYMN. 143 

Ye shall return and come to me again. 
Yea, and I will unveil to you my face, 

And be an everlasting Friend. 

Amen ! " 



IN THE POST OFFICE. 

JUST in the office where I work, where, night 
by night, I give myself to toil 
(Because for eight years past my tour of duty has 

been in the night, 
And I at dawn have quit the work to me assigned), 
What wonders ne'er surpassed by aught in ancient 

verse described or told in tales of eld, 
Have I both heard and witnessed ! 



What sorrows have I seen ; what awful passions 

have I felt about me ! 
The same, perhaps, as those which swayed in old 

Achilles' bosom — 
Hates, envies, loves, ambitions, aspirations — 
(I, too, have had my share, not more nor less than 

others). 
All these I find about me. 
144 



IM THE POST OFFICE. I45 

I knew one who was scorned, despised, rejected, 
(himself a gentle, kindly, tender soul, 

Yet lacking wit and some mere worldly shrewdness 
of discernment), 

And so he pined and died — a letter-carrier as true 
and good as any in the service, 

And a most faithful Christian — 

Strange seemed his death among us. 

And one I knew whose very frame seemed fash- 
ioned 

For toilsome tasks prodigious ; wild and hearty — 

The generous and the noble instincts in him 

Strove with the base and selfish. 

Some months — and he surrendered to his passions, 
lost courage, self-respect and secret honor — 

Was suddenly arrested. 

I knew another who, in altercation, was shot at and 
received into his forehead a bullet vainly 
probed for. 

Some weeks and he returned and worked among us 
(the bullet in his brain still lodging) 

Quiet he seemed and strangely still in manner ; 

Yet oft we stood together boxing mail and talking. 



146 POETICAL SERMONS. 

One afternoon he stood so ; 

Then stopped, turned pale, then gray with sudden 

fainting — vomit — he sank — no word — 
And in a few hours died. 

Another clerk I knew 

Who many months was my especial partner. 

In battles had he been amongst the Southern sol- 
diers. 

And often since had wandered, 

A homeless vagrant housing 'mid the boxes 

High piled on city wharves. 

But now, his fortune shifting, 

He 'd bought a city lot and sold it to advantage ; 

And thence to Speculation's promise listening 

He gave to her his faith and she to him was faith- 
ful. 

Three years ; and he was driving through our city, 

A president of railroads. 

Another one I knew, 

Whom honest, manly love redeemed from Hell's 

own thraldom, 
And e'er his marriage day he pledged himself to 

freedom from drink and drink's temptations. 



IN THE POST OFFICE. I47 

Six years, and yet again his former foe assailed him 
And he anew was worsted. 

And two I know to-day, 

Whose lives are passed in anguish sore and griev- 
ous, 

O, pathos of it all ! O, thou most dread disease 

That markest, every month, so many human vic- 
tims, 

What can we say of those whom thou destroyest (so 
lingeringly destroyest) ; 

Save that the love of God attends them in disguise ? 

** These be exceptions ! " say you. 

Nay ! truly no exceptions have I mentioned. 

These be life's common outcomes — frequent for- 
tunes. 

Yet this I know, my brother, 

That every life hath millions of exceptions to every 
other life ; and yet, O joy ! O comfort ! 

No true life lived hath any real exception — (worth the 
mention) 

To that true life, — that simple life unrivalled^ — 

That J esus lived among us. 



148 POETICAL SERMONS. 

What words most wild are these ? 

What thoughts unthought till now — (yet common- 
place forever, since they are one with reason) 
— have justified my pen ? Works Christ in 
Station " E " ? 

These friends so underpaid and overburdened ; 

These sorters, drivers, boxers, carriers, stampers, 

These fellows of my sort : so foolish, reckless, lazy, 
oft and oft profane, and oft impure ! 

Are these the dread, august and mighty sons of God ? 

Are these the like of James, John, Matthew, Peter, 
Paul? 

Ordained to dream, and do yet greater works than 
Christ's ? 

To still the coward sea ! To heal the maimed and 
dumb and blind ! 

To feed, without supply, a thousand in a day ! 

To call the rigid dead to life ! To thrill to life de- 
vine — hope beyond hope, faith infinitely more 
than trust, love never yet interpreted by 
passion — 

The souls unwakened in the sense-bound souls of 
countless men and women ; 

Becoming unto years and worlds undreamed a joy, 
a light, a starry inspiration ! 



IN THE POST OFFICE. 1 49 

Are these the very ones ? Are these and they 
identical ? 

Behold ! even this, not less, I count their certain 

fate — their sure appointed fortune, 
Because of God's and Christ's great love and hope 

and faith undreamable in them 
For whom He loves and suffers. 
For even as God is so much more than man so 

much the more He suffers. 
And even so much as God is more than man so 

much the more he lives and loves and labors. 

Just in the office where we work, 

God works as well as we, and Truths and mysteries 

equal unto any by ancient prophets studied 
Are ours to meditate and muse. 
When in the summer-time Post-Ofifice work runs 

slack. 



THE AMBITION. 

I come not to find fault nor proffer praise ; 
Enough are in that business now. 
Thrones and sceptres make me tired ; adulation 

makes me tired. 
Old criticism born of self-conceit, is wearing on the 

soul. 
I 'd rather win what 's worthy of my manhood's 

whole endeavor — 
Something essential, secret, that shall complete my 

nature — 
A force, stress, faith, intelligence beyond what now 

I share. 
I 'd rather be a single day what Jesus Christ was 

once 
Than live for ages in the depths of dull self-satis- 
faction and stagnant unconcern. 
Give me to love as that man loved, 
Who held for three full years his spellbound friends 

about him ; 

150 



THE AMBITION. I5I 

And, dying, died not from their love, but satisfied 
their love with splendid demonstrations after 
death. 

Give me intensity so strong that while I loiter heed- 
less in the streets my dreaming moods shall be 
as master victories ; 

My meditations, strict and high, accomplishments 
and conquests most effectual. 

Give me to walk absorbed in others' weal through 
Brooklyn's streets to-day. 

Pleased with the chance of usefulness to some, or 
with the thought of others' larger usefulness ; 

Electrified, as by a touch, whene'er some hero act I 
muse upon or see ; 

Rejoiced at times to be an unknown force or un- 
computed factor in God's world ; 

Proud, proud to be a postal clerk myself : to choose 
the hardest task and put my strength to test. 

Have others sighed in dungeons cold, or slept upon 
the field where late they bravely struggled ? 

Give me for human kind to strive, protest, endure, 
die! 

(Since one at any rate must die, why not for some- 
thing worth the while ? ) 

Since destined to experience death, why not make 
that too count, as well as aught beside ? 



152 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Give me to demonstrate God's life to some who 've 
missed that vision. 

The proof of God that 's hardest to refute is char- 
acter displayed to unconceived effects. 

So, if this grace, this joy be mine, that I at last 
shall share the love that Jesus showed ; 

I '11 ask not years of service long, nor ease, nor 
wealth, nor anything beside. 

Give me, O God ! the God-like quality, and give 
to all I love the happy faith I know ; 

That they may hail as well as I the chance to cheer 
the soul, 

Joy to inaugurate and transmit, 

Life to increase and cleanse and deepen and en- 
hance ; 

The bolder confidence assert ; the freer spirit show, 

And prove the times in which we live an apostolic 
age, 

Dowered with the universal Truths that energize 
the world. 



PRAYER. 

I READ of Jesus Christ that he continued oft all 
night in prayer. 

Well, what is prayer but the right and liberty of 
intercourse that a son has with his father. 

It is not asking for this or that. It is not neces- 
sarily making any request. 

It is just to be still and await the resolution of one's 
thought and feeling into forms of divine wis- 
dom and intent. 

Thus prayer is a profound interior experience. It 
cannot be denied nor is it possible for the world 
to ignore its results in the lives of those who 
are its subjects. 

I perceive that throughout the whole world the men 
of most direct moral potency have been men 
of prayer. 

And from my own experience I assert that through 
prayer I know the benefit of access to such 
wisdom as is immediately applicable to life. 

153 



154 POETICAL SERMONS. 

And that in the light of prayer there is ever a 
revelation of duty and an unmistakable dis- 
covery of one's spiritual estate. 

Through prayer also we enjoy a realization of our 
relationship to the Eternal ; and by prayer the 
power of the spirit of God is verified in our 
experience and the personality of Jesus Christ 
identified by us as that of God's typical son. 

And by faith through prayer we are enabled to 
walk reasonably and uprightly and know the 
way of our pilgrimage ; and the fair reality of 
our inheritance in the wisdom and might of 
God, that is in the Apostles and our brother 
Jesus Christ. 

Wherefore we ask not anything in prayer ; yet 
have part in all things in the spirit of the life 
which provideth every good. 

For we become other than we were ; and the atti- 
tude of our minds being changed we carry 
ourselves as the freemen of God, and by spirit- 
ual sympathy enjoy in hope the first fruits of 
an experience and development to come. 

Lo ! now I declare that things impossible to doubt- 
ing men, are readily enough performable by 
all of us through prayer. 



PRAYER. 155 

And assert that the equivalent and more than the 
equivalent of whatsoever I have asked in faith 
I have enjoyed through prayer. 

Infinite property, health unimaginable, sanity, 
honor and deathless remembrance are all 
attainable through prayer. 

Lo ! when I think of this I hear a mighty and 
urgent voice within me saying : 

Assuredly thou art my son and the kingdom that 
is prepared for thee thou shalt enjoy. 

Behold ! it far exceeds whate'er thou can'st con- 
ceive concerning it ; being all possible good, 
truth and life, but especially peace and joy in 
the Holy Ghost ; 

And potency in spiritual manhood that thou mayest 
demonstrate my being and existence among 
men, who being persuaded of me by thee shall 
henceforth live anew. 

Yea ! thou thyself, and the being I have given thee 
shall yet stand free and glorious, disenthralled, 
transfigured and manifested in sublime propor- 
tions ; 

Endowed with all the past of all humanity and the 
sum of its accumulated joys and griefs, includ- 
ing Athens' rise and fall and Rome's tremen- 



156 POETICAL SERMONS. 

dous history and Jesus Christ's brave life and 
solemn, glorious death ! 

Yet a little while, a few years only (perhaps less) 
and thou shalt (perhaps in conditions other 
than these) undergo a development yet un- 
dreamed ; 

And in that day thou shalt ask me nothing. 

Yet here, now, already, whatsoever thou askest I 
will do ; and at any moment thou mayest freely 
lay hold on infinite wisdom, freedom, power 
and good. 

Yet scarce till thou conceivest me thy Father can'st 
thou enjoy the good I offer : 

Nor till thou ownest that thou art my son can'st 
thou behave on earth like a true man. 



HEALTH DIVINE. 

HEALTH is man's true estate 
And simply to be sound 
In body, mind and soul 
Is Christianity complete and spiritual religion. 

"But I," say you, " enjoy the soundest health. 
No troubles, no diseases e'er afflict me. 
Not mine the pale, depressed, consumptive's cough ; 
His fearful haunting eye or wandering step uncer- 
tain. 

" No sleepless nights I pass, no gouty or rheumatic 

pains I suffer. 
Dyspepsia, palsy, asthma ne'er attacked me. 
My flesh is firm and fair, my heart throbs sound as 

any's 
Is not my health quite perfect ? " 

157 



158 POETICAL SERMONS. 

But wherefore stop so soon ? 

Not yet is thy examination over : the test is incom- 
plete. 

Let 's sum the man entire. 

Skip not the hidden parts. Probe to diseases of 
the will. 

Weigh tendencies, predispositions, habits ; the 
maladies of mind and soul ; 

That you may stand approved, the very type of 
manhood ; 

Indubitably sound and perfectly proportioned and 
needing no physician. 

Long since, I had an illness. 

I know not how it came or wherefore it befel me. 

Perhaps I failed to find my proper food ; perhaps 
the air I breathed was tainted. 

Or I was indisposed to exercise sufficient, 

Or still ignored the fact and law of man's recupera- 
tion (how universal 't is, how always operative). 

And so I sought or I was sent a doctor 

Whose word, touch, presence, thrilling, awoke the 
slumbering, vital forces in me ; 

Till blessedly revived, rejuvenated, I trod in joy 
and wonder 

A world itself transformed, renewed, divine. 



HEALTH DIVINE. 1 59 

But you were always well ? 

Slept soundly every night ? Awoke refreshed each 

morning ? 
Mind always clear, alert and rightly toned and 

tensioned ? 
Spirit uncramped ? all-capable ? exultant ? divinely 

dominated by the good ? 
Your spiritual senses sharp ? 
(Imagination, wonder, faith, joy, candor, grit and 

sympathy.) 
The pulse of every day's affections normal, full and 

strong ? 
Your moral instincts true ? Duty's appeal obeyed 

with all unconscious action ? 
The functions of the soul (appreciation, admiration, 

honor) essayed without an effort (as children 

breathe or sleep or wake) yet like the sense of 

health accompanied by nameless satisfaction? 
Is this thy state most blessed ? 



Sometimes I think the soundest man of men was 

Jesus Christ, my master. 
Lo ! on the rocking, wave-washed deck (I read) all 

night he slumbered. 



l6o POETICAL SERMONS. 

Lo ! in the crowded city's streets, day after day, 
for weeks and months he labored (fatigued 
with ceasless crowds). 

Exhaustive was his toil intense (alike of mind and 
body and affection). 

Tremendous, too, the burden of men's ignorance, 
servility and cold or stupid contradiction of all 
that to the wise is evident. 

And these and other loads undreamed he bore, sus- 
taining to the last an attitude of majesty un- 
speakable. 

For splendid was his health ! 

While ever he fulfilled, with instinct sure and true, 
the law of life's recuperation. 

Thus on the mountain all the night he rested : still 
satisfying, strengthening, feasting 

The powers of Will and Faith, of sympathy and 
joy, and Reason's insight sure ; 

Till, mightily refreshed, he rose to undergo the bat- 
tle and the trial (made perfect in selfmastery,) 

And played his part supreme to all men's grateful 
and revived affection ; prompting in all the 
free confession of perfect health and faculties 
uninjured. 



HEALTH DIVINE. l6l 

Why are we not as he ? 

Our judgment and our insight fail because we fail 
to do our duty. (Deemest thou the unknown 
ever more unknowable ? I bid thee ponder 
then " the known " more deeply). 

Deemest thou the spiritual world far off ? I bid 
thee know the heights and depths of duty ! 

Our habits are neglect and not performance. 

But He was industry incarnate and enterprise em- 
bodied, forever mastering situations hard ! 

(Mark you his words, "/ atn the Resurrection^^ 

And still through faithfulness to life's great law, 
duty performed as soon as known, the secret 
dear of health and spiritual manhood — 

He perfected in joy his moral intuitions, 

Till steady, sure, reliable, 

They are become the vast constructive framework 
of human creed and conduct. 



God is the atmosphere — the proper air of man- 
hood ! 

Our daily, hourly breath — is it not inspiration ? 

To live, is it not still to love ? Is love not life's 
supremest form ? 



1 62 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Yea ! and the stalwart soul's true life— the perfect 

man's true nature ? 
Is it not Christ ? Is it not God ? 
Yea ! and my Christology complete, what is it more 

than this : 
That 'jFesus Christ, my master dear and true, 
Enjoyed sound health on earth, in body, mind and spirit, 

and calls us to the same. 



A MOTHER. 

A SONG to mother's memory ; a slight charac- 
terization of her we love. 

She of such simple, gentle, natural manners and 
ways ; 

Ever considerate, good ; constantly meditating 
other's conditions and needs and studying how 
to provide for their pleasure or benefit. 

She of the perfectly beautiful disposition, the even 
and happy temper ; developed symmetrically all 
round, but characterized especially by practi- 
cal wisdom and judgment in affairs. 

Immersed in the world and life that now is ; attend- 
ing solely to that ; minding altogether the 
present duty and finding nothing more im- 
portant or infinite than it. 

Simply genuine ; void of ostentation and the thought 
of it or of any temptation to aught vulgar, 
coarse or rude : above all pique, idiosyncracy, 
animosity. 

163 



164 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Innocent of dogma and the spirit of dogma, and the 
vanity that plumes itself on maintaining certain 
preconceived theological positions. 

Satisfied to see anything stand or fall on its own 
merits. Void of theory ; reasonable and sub- 
mitting everything to open debate without fear 
or prejudice. 

In manner gracious ; refined, habitually appre- 
ciative ; sympathetic and dignified with the 
native dignity of one who enjoys excellence 
and quality in speech, manners and behavior. 

Always open and ready to hear whatever of news 
there was to tell. Genial, congenial. 

Democratic too, with free instinctive sympathy with 
all (as well as for all) whate'er their rank or 
station. 

Respecting the inner life in servant maid or laborer 
as truly as in any other ; 

Winning by personal sympathy and interest the 
confidence of such. 

Glad also to contribute of her means to every 
worthy cause — the Society for Aged Men and 
Seaside Home for Children. 

Interested first in whatever interested or concerned 
her own children : living in them and their wel- 
fare first. 



A MOTHER. 165 

Always at home to whoever wished to call ; access- 
ible, approachable ; but of the caller's spirit 
sensible ; not easily deceived ; wise through 
entire sincerity. 

Desirous only to be understood and rightly, too, 
to understand some other's argument, position, 
standpoint. 

A great lover of children and the young and of 
flowers and of out-door life. 

A lover of Natural History and the infinite physical 
world in its variety. 

A lover of good pictures too and of good music and 
the results of cultivated taste. 

Easily associating with the refined and scholarly : 
knowing herself of the best quality ; yet waiv- 
ing, never seeking, the externalities of fashion 
or of wealth. 

A second Dorcas too, now saving and preparing 
cuts and scraps for scrap-books to be sent to 
sailors on the sea ; 

Neat, scrupulously clean ; to each detail of house- 
work giving especial heed. Industrious but not 
over busy ; with time to be attentive always. 

Derisive never, nor querulous : never disdainful ; 
depreciating her own critical or argumentative 
powers ; 



1 66 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Only grieved, surprised or indignant at the evil re- 
corded or revamped by others : 

Only silent and very sorrowful at the impatience, 
petulance, or over-indulgence of others. 

Most merciful, most mild ; so beautiful in mien ; 
so easy to entreat — so able to console. 

Enjoying throughout all her years uninterrupted 
health and spirits ; 

A great lover of her own home : of Brooklyn and 
the streets in which she walked as a girl ; as of 
the hills and vales about our country home. 

Interested in the news of the day and in the houses 
of the Hazlits and other old families, still stand- 
ing in Joralemon and Livingston Streets. 

Interested in Plymouth Church and in its people 
and their welfare and the sailors of the Bethel 
and the poor families she loved to aid. 

A great admirer of Henry Ward Beecher ; capable 
of enjoying and owning his largeness of thought, 
conception, purpose, faith. 

In his infinite goodness, serious spiritual life and 
teaching, finding admitted help and blessing. 

Of his Successor too, just as appreciative : finding 
in him, too, the Christian Light, Truth, and 
Wisdom. 



A MOTHER. 167 

Yearning also that her children should prove worthy 

members of society and, in themselves, worthy 

the invariable confidence she reposed in them ; 
Cherishing above all else the faith that they were 

so. 
Not troubled by attacks on the Bible, not dogmatic 

regarding the inerrancy of scripture. 
Open ever to new views ; not given to "religious 

talk." 
With emancipated mind hearing the latest results 

of study and research. 
Intrinsically devout ; loyal to the forms of religion ; 

an attendant of the church and prayer meeting. 
To no extremes of ecstacy aspiring ; of raptures 

high, and spiritual exaltations not ambitious ; 
Pleased rather with the romps and shouts of happy 

boys and girls. 
In others' pleasure pleased ; in others' good, en- 
joyment, finding joy. 
All beauty, health, activity and freedom enjoying to 

the full ; 
In love and in the mother-life discovering every 

good and showing us Christ's spirit. 
Enduring with endurance wonderful, slights, cutting 

words, indifference, outrage, wrong. 



1 68 POETICAL SERMONS. 

O wonderful in patience, loyalty ; for our sake suf- 
fering all, enduring all for us unto the end ; 

To thee be honor ever with all gratitude, affection- 
ate remembrance and never dying love. 



EDUCATION. 

ONCE I thought the Father's care, provision, 
love for me was finite. 
Once I thought I should live in one world only and 

in one age only. 
Now I see I am living in all ages of the world and 

in all places also. 
I see that all possible experience is provided and 

that no dreams suggest what actual life affords. 
I remember, as a boy, I used always to look for the 

motor power of every car or carriage. 
But nowadays I see carriages and cars all about 

moved by invisible motor power. 
Once I thought we could not speak directly with 

another more than a few yards distant, 
But now I whisper in my chair and friends a hun- 
dred miles away can understand each word. 
Once I thought we could never see through flesh 

and blood and wood and leather, but now I 

know we can. 

l6g 



I/O POETICAL SERMONS. 

Once I thought the tones of dead men lived in 
memory only, but now I hear them for a dime 
upon the public street. 

! I see I was all wrong and mistaken wholly in 

matters most familiar. 
Or is it only in regard to the " Unknown World " 

that we are always right ? 
Is it only respecting the plans and purposes of God 

that we are absolutely informed ? 
Is it only of the inaccessible originals of the Scrip- 
ture that we can say, We know they are 

inerrant ? 
O, I am a child ! Everybody else is omniscient ! 

It is presumption for me not to say " I know " 

when I do not. 
Still unacquainted with myself, unhelped I find 

myself by slow but sure degrees. 

1 remember I read, in my school-days, of Nero 

and his persecution of the Christians and I 
thought, had I lived then, I should have died 
a martyr. 
But five thousand Christians were massacred in 
sight of the English flag this week, and at table 
I ate well. 



EDUCATION. 171 

I remember I thought once that China was conserv- 
ative and that a wall was built about it lest 
strangers should come in. 

But now I see a wall about free America and all 
the sons of China forbidden to come in. 

I remember I thought once how necessary it was 
to prove the existence of God. 

But now I see that if only I can prove my love for 
Him, or for man, I shall have done as much. 

Nothing, (so once I thought) could be greater than 
to talk with a prophet of God. 

And nov/ I know I have met dozens and dozens of 
prophets of God unawares and been rude and 
cold before them — and am a prophet myself. 

Once, to have thrown myself at Shelley's feet ; to 
have talked one hour with Chunder Sen, would 
have been heaven to me. 

What then ? I have communed with them for years, 
I see they are really as near me as I have 
cared they should be. 

I know for years and years I shunned Walt Whit- 
man as absurd : 

Yet, later on, his books confirmed in me a love of 
Christ. 



172 POETICAL SERMONS. 

All ! All ! All ! And a thousand joys undreamed 

and sorrows, too, undreamed have been in life 

vouchsafed. 
I see I have had all my wishes — and more : I see I 

am become what I loved — base or noble. 
I have sailed seas I never imagined existed, and 

arrived at ports I never dreamed were on the 

map. 
Not in the distant, but the near, I've found the 

Infinite, Eternal. 
Not what I' ve asked would have sufficed. Noth- 
ing, O Father, save what thou hast granted, 

had sufficed. 
I find the credible unknown ; of all I' ve deemed 

incredible I' ve seen the equal here. 
O world of wonders, miracles ! Amazed I wander 

cities, woods ; amazed I fall asleep or wake or 

see the sun, 
Or press the hands of loving friends or share, in 

converse deep, the sweetest truths of God ! 
Or in the Post-Office all day, assorting letters, year 

by year among my fellow-clerks ; 
Or down at Plymouth hearing Beecher preach, or 

on some silent, inland lake enjoying raptures 

new ; 



EDUCATION. 173 

Or any night at prayer meeting : or writing in my 
room as now, or talking with a friend : 

Still, still in each event, experience, beyond the 
'good I thought, I find a deeper blessing. 

Enough ! I think in death or life the Father of the 
worlds has owned me as a son. 



AN AVOWAL. 

SOMEHOW I feel I am to speak. Somehow 
I understand that I am called, and come. 
Somehow, I dare not disallow my mother's pride 

in me. 
Somehow, too much has been bequeathed ; too 

great appears the truth for me to falter now. 
For me have many suffered much : in hope of 

what I am what blood has soaked the earth ! 
For me heroic Huss was burned : and Langland, 

in his day, his holy " Vision " wrote. 
For me the Middle Ages groaned and Abelard 

proclaimed the moral life of God. 
For me the early Christians met and e'er the dawn 

confirmed their purpose with an oath. 
For me the mystics stood their ground and Jacob 

Boehme dared the vast " Aurora " pen. 
For me old Anselm argued well and Albert Durer 

took such pains about his prints. 
174 



AN AVOWAL. 175 

For me Sienna's artists wrought in blue and red 

and gold. 
For me the learned Wycliff toiled and William 

Tyndale learned his Greek to some account. 
For me the " Dedache " was writ and Polycarp 

behaved so nobly at his death. 
For me 't is said that Jesus died, and I myself 

believe that Jesus died for me. 
Far off he sav/ and read my soul and he believed 

his love should have effect with me. 
How great the cost that I am here ! Whoe'er is 

good and wise has wept and bled for me. 
In vain shall I deny my worth and own that these 

were wise. 
I own my worth ; my shame and sin until to-day 

has been denial of my worth. 



WALT WHITMAN. 

WITH Augustine and Luther now how walks 
the man despised in these United States. 

So long by churches, clubs despised : and literary 
cliques, that study, without love, the loving 
souls of poets. 

Now walks he free because of love, the simple, 
plain and powerful soul who suffered here for 
man. 

The patient helper of the poor, the wounded sol- 
dier's nurse, the friendly mate of common folks 
on ferry-boat and street. 

A deckhand with the deckhands ; with railroad 
men a railroad man ; among reporters, a re- 
porter ; a farmer on the farm ; with clerks a 
clerk himself. 

A man for all or any one : an open-hearted com- 
rade ; a citizen without reproach and whereso- 
e'er he dwelt a patriot-poet too. 

176 



WALT WHITMAN. Ijy 

Sing him I will because despised. Nor yet alone 

because despised ; because of what he was to 

me and thousands more. 
O godliest ! most religious man : O giver of religion 

still, if still religion be the life of God in man ; 
What can I do but set thy name among their names 

I love : the plain and mighty men of God, — 

Augustine, Luther, Paul. 



TO ALL MANHATTANESE. 

WHY unconcerned are you and why indif- 
ferent 

To the one man who 's dared to sing (unheeding 
slander, blame, disdain) 

Your vast and wondrous city ? 

Worthy the man and fair his theme — and wonder- 
ful his song inspired of faith, good-will, good 
cheer — 

And why not so received ? 

Why not received in hope, good faith, good-will 
indeed by you ? 

For naught of all he chanted here above the town 
he loved he magnified or praised. 

Mast-hemmed Manhattan still he sang and owned 
it, even as I, the Holy Place of God. 

Sufficient to his soul its shows : the light upon its 
wharves and waves, the area of roofs, the har- 
bor and the Bridge — 

178 



TO ALL MANHATTANESE. 1 79 

Sufficient unto him its life — the passers on the 
street ; the teachers here he heard and loved : 
the friendliness, the chat, the greeting, the " So 
long." 

Glory and sancity in all ; delight and helpfulness 
in all ; contentment and belief in all and sym- 
pathy complete and worship thence and praise. 

So mused his meditative soul ; and so from year to 
year Manhattan's shows he sang. 

Nor only its parade he sang : its common daily 
life ; the pavements with their ceaseless blab ; 
the rich and poor alike, the good and bad he 
sang. 

Worthy the man and dear his theme and wonderful 
his song inspired of faith, good-will, good 
cheer (and why not so received ?). 

Why not received in hope, good faith, good-will by 
each of you ? 



A RHAPSODY. 

GIVE me space, yea, give me breath, 
I have loved for life and death 
Nature with her endless years 
Suns and moons and cosmic spheres ; 
Beasts, whose very manes and eyes 
Dignify menageries ; 
Blooms of spring 'mid branches bare 
And forest folk that tenant there, 
And streams and swamps and ponds and fens 
And sloping lawns and lonely glens — 
And hills, with shoulders dark and green, 
And many a brake in rapture seen. 
And noon itself, supreme and high, 
And night and storm and mystery. 

Give me space, yea, give me breath, 
I have loved for life and death, 
Plymouth, holy, boundless, free, 
Jealous for Humanity — 

1 80 



A RIIAFSODY. l8l 

Whence the testimony ran : 
" God hath burst the bonds of man," 
And anew the tale is told ; 
Truth hath made the gentle bold. 
Aye, and Faith to manhood grown, 
Speaketh in prophetic tone, 
Wise, beneficent and free, 
As of old in Galilee. 

Give me space, yea, give me breath, 
I have loved for life and death 
Poets and apostles brave 
Swift to rescue from the grave 
Those who sleep and ne'er suspect 
What one life-hour may effect. 
Whence 'till death in joy I '11 chant 
Paul, the flaming Protestant ; 
Whittier and Lowell just. 
Who in their country put their trust. 
He the Hampton schools who built 
To wash away his country's guilt ; 
Livingston and Pierre Marquette 
Whose spirits in the heavens are met, 
Though each a lonely journey went 
Across an unknown continent ; 



1 82 POETICAL SERMONS. 

And Behmen, mystic seer, whose eye 

Beheld, in Nature, Deity ; 

And Luther, who in God became 

A People's life, a Church's name ; 

And thousands who their days have served 

And walked with Wisdom unobserved ; 

Plain and simple men whose wit 

Was but for their duty fit, 

And greater things in faith achieved 

Than ever Shakespeare's Muse conceived. 

Women who have rescued men, 

And called the dead to life again : 

Postal clerks to God who came 

Facing disrespect and shame ; 

And others who in death have smiled 

With rapture — more than reconciled. 

Saints unknown, to memory dear, 

And he who walked among us here 

Like Fox (the soul of Truth who knew 

How much the Love divine can do) 

Beecher ! Aye, the man of God 

Who quickened souls where 'er he trod. 

Give me space, yea, give me breath, 
I have loved for life and death, 



A RHAPSODY. 1 83 

This Manhattan strange and dread, 

That in joy and awe I tread, 

'Till, my initiation passed, 

I behold it all at last. 

Wholly God's ; and each event 

In politics a sacrament 

Of life divine that may refresh 

A son of man while in the flesh. 

O town of wonders manifold ! 

Where women shiver in the cold 

Of selfishness and men are blind. 

And hoot and hunt the human mind 

In book reviews and cry : " Alas ! 

How shameful is the ' Leaves of Grass ' ! 

No form has it that we desire : 

Fit only for the raging fire " — 

Where still the Orthodox are found 

Who think their dooryard " holy ground," 

And where the Sadducees deny 

The joys of Immortality. 

And people in the churches say : 

" God's children are we all to-day" ; 

But whisper " blasphemy " when one 

Says, out-of-doors, " I am God's son." 



184 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Yet here the morn its glory spends, 
And still the teacher keeps his friends, 
And he whose words have given birth 
To faith and rapture on the earth 
Despite his own disciples' fears 
Returns and in their midst appears ; 
And then the Spirit cries in them 
And tumult fills Jerusalem ! 
Ah, me ! I have no love at all ! 
I am not John, I am not Paul 
And yet I come to build upon 
The great rejected Corner-stone ; 
Nor when I muse upon the man 
Through whom my deeper life began 
(Though he, in truth, did but restore 
What Jesus gave to me before) 
And see the city dead asleep 
Think you that I can silence keep. 
So here my Rhapsody I tell 
And walk with the Invisible, 
And feed each day on mysteries 
Never tasted by surmise ; 
And know the peace that fits for strife, 
The mighty baptism of life, 
Righteousness or Love intense 



A RHAPSODY. 18$ 

Glorious in consequence, 
That took the life of Tweed away 
And riseth up again to-day, 
Crying to the Dead and Blind : 
" I ran ahead, I come behind, 
Though in the Mayor's seat you sit 
Hear me, or you shall grieve for it ! 
For howsoe'er the people dote 
It is at last with me they vote 
( Conjoined to the Heavenly host) 
Because I am the Holy Ghost." 

O thou City, God-endowed 
From the morning's highest cloud 
(Golden, won'drous), to the last 
Waif of human nature cast 
Shamefully apart to die 
Though the heir of Deity. 
Up ! and let a Spirit new 
Come in Pentecost on you ; 
Scorn the saying of the priest : 
*' God is most where man is least." 
Say not : " We are blind and weak," 
Ye can hear and God can speak ! 
Yea, and ye can thunder too 



1 86 POETICAL SERMONS. 

While his Word is shared by you. 
Hear ! No longer are we dumb ; 
Lo ! The world to come is come ! 
Dreams and lies are done away, 
Lo ! It is the Judgment Day. 
Jesus Christ is not afar 
Where he is we also are ; 
Men to whom the judgment throne 
And the life of God is known ! 
Men, as you, and yet sufficed 
In the fellowship of Christ ; 
Simple men indeed and rude 
Followed by the multitude ; 
Yet in Love's experience 
Heirs of nameless consequence. 
Shakers of the Church ; engrossed 
Rather in the Holy Ghost — 
Love — the manhood crucified 
By the world on every side — 
(Yet eternal God complete) 
Fit to sit in Moses' seat 
Judge the Scriptures yea and write 
Others in the Spirit's might ; 
This, O City by the Sea, 
Is the Word we show to thee. 



A RHAPSODY. 187 

Give me space, yea, give me breath 
I have loved for life and death, 
Goodness, nameless and supreme, 
Dreamless, yea and not a dream — 
Judgment, gentleness, delight, 
Patience ceaseless day and night — 
Love in every guise and shape 
Whence there could not be escape — 
Mother ! by whose self from hence 
Death and life has consequence ! 

Give me space ; yea, give me breath ! 
I have loved for life and death 
(And life fulfilled that ceases not 
But, aye transcends desire and thought) 
Love — the spirit that doth bless 
Whoever not companionless 
Breathes in hope and trusts to be 
Larger, wiser, and more free — 
And even as Thou, O spirit dear, 
That sufferedst to save me here 
And art my better self to whom 
In death, and life, alike I come ! 
Give me space, yea, give me breath 
I have loved for life and death, 



POETICAL SERMONS. 

Manhood absolute, untold — 
Fresh and mighty from of old — 
Hidden long and late restored : 
Slave of slave, and lord of lord — 
Poor and ignorant and rude 
Blazing from the multitude — 
Terrible to Church and Creed. 
Counting each a broken reed, 
Saying, *' Friends ! arise and be 
Fellow-laborers with me. 
Truth I am in boundless store 
Yea ! and ye shall furnish more ! 
Love I am : it is my name ; 
Yea, and yours shall be the same. 
Deeds I do, yet is it true 
Ye yet greater deeds shall do. 
This my law, all laws above : 
Love ye even as I love. 
Man I am and men are ye, 
And as mine your lives shall be. 
Life I am and life I give ; 
Yea ! I die that ye may live. 
Yea, and ye who live must die, 
And redeem the world as L" 
Thus to all he ever saith 
Whom we love for life and death. 



THE INVITATION. 

COME ! I spread you a feast : I give what I en- 
joy myself, I invite you and all. 
Belief in one's own life and work. Belief in God, 

one's proper life, the Self within the self I set 

before you now. 
I set before you joy, surprise, and reverence for the 

world transcendent and most real. 
Others of other times may tell, of inspiration past 

or judgment days to come. 
I tell you of experience here and an eternal world 

and day of judgment now. 
I set before you your own house : your every-day 

concerns, duties, engagements, hopes. 
Already in the unknown world there 's nothing one 

can dream that 's equal to the real, 
Lo ! Sinai shook with no lightnings and thunders 

not daily heard and visible even from the 

Brooklyn Bridge. 

189 



190 POETICAL SERMONS. 

(Or, if it did, they bore no special significance.) 
Moses brought not down any commandments from 

the crags that you do not carefully carry with 

you each day you leave your rooms for your 

office or shop. 
I set before you a feast, I set before you the Last 

Supper and the body and spirit of Christ. 
Sanctity, mystery, the power of God and the spirit 

of holy manhood — are they not a daily ne- 
cessity ? 
Have you aught if you lack a Father, and having 

the consciousness of the Father, have you 

not all .? 
Do you not see that if Truth holds the citadel of 

your being you are impregnable ? 
Do you not see that the Spirit of Christ enables 

you to master any and all possible situations ? 
Lo ! 'tis a right of your nature to enjoy his Spirit 

who said : " I am the Way, the Truth and the 

Life." 
How would you like to have such a consciousness 

as that for your own ? You may ! 
Do you not find the most clear knowledge you 

now enjoy something incredible to the state 

you were once in ? 



THE INVITATION. I9I 

Do you not see that you must be misunderstood 

and misapprehended by many so soon as your 

sight is clear — your prophecy spiritual ? 
Do you not see that while I set before you joy, 

character, glory, immortality, there is another 

who sets before you what also you have a taste 

for and relish better ? 
Do you not see that you make out of life what you 

will and that you take from the board of life 

what you elect ? 
The water of life and the bread of life is on the 

table. Faith is there ! Good-faith is there. 
The water that never fails is there. I have tasted 

of it and can never thirst, as once. 
I pass it on, knowing that he who drinketh of the 

water I shall give him shall never thirst. Amen. 



THE FOREST VISION. 

WHERE forest trees of ancient frame 
Make entrance to a wood, 
A little stream without a name, 
Gladdens the solitude. 

It was along this quiet brook 

I wandered when a boy ; 
Now feasting from a poet's book, 

Now tasting other joy. 

There was no other place so dear 

In musing mood to me ; 
It seemed my inmost spirit here 

Had special liberty. 

And once, as I to-day recall. 

Beside this brook stood I, 
When suddenly my soul was thrall 

To sweetest lunacy. 
192 



THE FOREST VISION. I93 

'T was autumn : half the woods were gray, 

And half with color burned ; 
And all my being on that day 

Toward Nature's beauty yearned. 

Such pleasure did my soul partake ; 

When lo ! some rods away 
Upon a fair and tangled brake, 

A mystic glory lay. 

A bliss, a rapture through me ran, 

Because 't was mine to see 
The light beholden not by man, 

Except in ecstasy. 

Held was my gaze, nor could refuse 

That transcendental sight, 
I saw the light the brake suffuse, 

Dear God ! I saw the Light. 

Since when through many a woodland dell 

Full wistfully I go ; 
Anew, anew to know the spell 

That once 't was mine to know. 



TO JESUS CHRIST. 

ENVY only Thee, O Master of the minds and 

hearts of all who love and dare. 
O truest, faithfulest of men to that that moved in 

Thee ; 
O most complete persuader of the world, through 

perfect faithfulness to that that dwelt and 

moved in Thee, I envy only Thee. I love and 

worship Thee ; 
Or any like to Thee ! 



194 



FROM BROOKLYN BRIDGE. 

I suppose some of you say, " If I could only have eye-sight 
of God once, it would be a great help to me." I think it very 
probable that you do have eye-sight of God. I think it prob- 
able that you look on God every time you look upon anything. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

Oct. sj, i8j2, 

OFOR instruction deep in God, give me the 
. morning charged with uncorrupted light. 

Give me the tides of flowing sea and sunset from 
the Bridge and wide Manhattan Bay ! 

Fair flecks of cloud, the spaciousness, the calm, 
the miracle of Earth beheld and omnipresent 
Day. Islands and cities huge and new, and 
Liberty's far form and hills of cloudy shape. 

The craft that dent the splendid waves, the Brook- 
lyn Heights, the wharves, the masts of every 
sea. 

195 



196 POETICAL SERMONS. 

The cirrus clouds and cumulus, the whole rotunda 

round about. The magnitude, the pomp, the 

color, the array. 
The seen, yet, straightway, the unseen. The real 

suggested whole in meditation viewed. 
From wooded shores shoot out canoes ; the Indian 

at the stern his paddle quickly plies. 

I see the Half- Moon down the Bay. Its hang- 
ing shrouds I see and every drape and fold. 

Dimness — a cloud — a bank of mirk : but from the 
Brooklyn shores embark the ragged troops. 

Without command or shout they pass, the oars with 
sullen splash their holy task fulfil. 

Saviours, redeemers in disguise ; enacting here a 
part that seems of little worth. 

But splendid and sublime that part ; sacred to me 
the stream my country's arms that saved. 

Sudden, anew the Fort I see ; recalling nearer days. 

The times of 1862, the Monitor, the ships of war — 
the soldiers leaving port for battle and for 
death. 

The scenes of which I 've heard so much : Lincoln 
in Plymouth Church and Beecher's thunders 
there. 



FROM BROOKLYN BRIDGE. 1 97 

Walt Whitman's days about the docks ; on ferry-boat 

and 'bus, the man without pretense. 
Lo ! since, what dreams arise and rise. I see the 

town reformed in one Reformer's faith. 
Amazed and glad I hail the view and more than 

sense descries I read in all I see. 
I say I see in all the soul. I say that every part 

contributes moral truth. 
I say the seen concerns the soul. I say from 

Brooklyn Bridge the world of God appears. 
Laws, legislation, fable, man contributed from all 

and every part I see. 
Enough of Horeb's dreadful heights, enough of 

Sinai's cliffs and Jordan's mystic wave. 
I see the same ! I see their full equivalent : Lo ! 

really from the Brooklyn Bridge the world to 

come I spy. 
Nor strange, nor unexpected 'tis: nor something 

one would not suppose — the spiritual world. 
Nought else ! I know not aught that 's else. I know 

not aught that 's strange or wondrous but the 

real. 
Thinkest thou that what 's imagined 's greatest ? 

Imagined things surpassed in what is here I 

own. 



ig8 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Confessing miracles I stand. Confessing Light and 

God, and sea and air — a shrine. 
And holier, sacreder than shrines, or the Shekinah's 

seat, the men and boys who pass. 
Wondering I gaze upon the stream — upon the 

floods that gleam with glory unconceived. 
Aware I know not but to-day I walk the world of 

God and stand before his throne. 
Awed not by aught but what is here and now : 

awed not but by Reality. 
Enough, He comes. Truth comes : Life that is 

truth is known, acknowledged and confessed. 
Father ! in awe I '11 die and live ! In praise I '11 

stand, or dumb, and praise in spirit still — 
Wandering at dawn or eve thy world, as now the 

Brooklyn Bridge. Atnen. 



THE CONFIDENCE. 

FATHER ! beyond my boyhood's dream Thou 
hast revealed Thy love. 

Thou, even Thou, to me appearest afresh after these 
many self-beclouded days — my Father — 
Mother even — in this world ! 

Wishes and all that aspiration knew, is nothing, 
after all, to that revealed with Thee. 

Better and more than dream or hope, (and doubt- 
less infinitely more than consciousness now 
owns) Thou art in fact to me ! 

My life Thou art. I know not how nor why. I 
know but that the good I know seems friend- 
ship to involve, and sonship, too, for me. 

I know but that this life I know — these cities and 
this world appear disclosed in Thee. 

Thou, only Thou, conceivest man's life — or pene- 
tratest our souls with promised sense of Thee. 
199 



200 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Thou only showest to mankind, man ! Thou only 
grantest one's-self indeed unto the self that 
longs. 

Thou only all fulfillest, in sons, those laws of son- 
ship here that are ordained by Thee. 

Therefore we falter not nor fear : Thy Word Thou 
wilt perfect, complete, in all mankind and me. 



THEY SAY THOU ART UNKNOWABLE. 

THEY say Thou art unknowable. 
What interest have I in one who is unknow- 
able ? 

Father ! whose care, continual aid, renewal, 
strength, I know — 

Whose self as daily goodness, wisdom, love, in 
human lives I know. 

Interpreted by qualities derived from Thee as Thy 
own son — 

My nature one with Thine — though seedlike — germ- 
like — scarcely germinant — 

Wherefore should I not know Thee ? 

I say I know Thee, and have known Thee ever, and 
that I know so truly none beside. 

As a child knows its father ; though of its father's 
cares, thoughts, infinite duties, it apprehend- 
eth not the scope or measure — 
291 



202 POETICAL SERMONS. 

So do I know Thee, Father, goodness infinite ; so 
do I run to Thee, so clasp Thee, cry to Thee ; 

So know thy breathed assurance, smile ; and sud- 
denly grow quiet, hushed, stilled indeed by 
Thee. 



THE UNREASON OF DESPAIR. 

THERE never yet was reason for despair : 
That heads the list of infidelities. 
Who doubts his fate a failure prophecies 
And aids his foes before he is aware. 
We must believe in Hope and Joy and Prayer 
Or we deny that all our destinies 
Are in Love's hand ; yea and that God is wise 
To give us only burdens we can bear. 
We must believe that Good is absolute ; 
Nor find our hope in any circumstance — 
Or outward thing — but in itself alone ; 
Because its nature can all things refute, 
All things endure — yea and still advance — 
Until it makes Reality its own ! 



203 



"ART THOU A KING, THEN?" 

I KNOW there is another world than this 
And that to it I properly belong. 
I know my inmost nature groweth strong 
When I but feel how actual that world is. 
Yet day by day, I walk along and miss 
The Inspiration of the Truth, among 
Poor, trivial things and cares that do me wrong ; 
Who am a King — a rightful King I wis ! 

"O rise," I cry unto my royal Soul. 

" Stretch forth thy sceptre, mount again thy throne. 

Yea, bid this disobedient Flesh be still." 

Even while I cry I hear a plaintive moan : 

" Call him no King who fails of self-control. 

They reign alone who do the Eternal's will." 



304 



THE TRIUMPH OF BEING. 

TO the lone, ancient stars of night I cry : 
" Worlds, are ye there ? Then, also, I am 

here." 
And with this stubborn thought my soul I cheer 
When of some truths I lose the certainty. 
Yea ! here I am, and as eternally 
As sea or star or yonder solemn sphere. 
I am — a voice in deaf creation's ear, 
Of nature's mighty frame a living eye. 
A wonder greater than the cloud or star, 
A spirit more abiding still than they, 
An element with space and time at war, 
And young and fresh while they are old and gray. 
Yet old as Nature 's this Intelligence 
Here throned of God. Who less can drive it 

hence ? 



205 



ODE TO ISRAEL. 

O PEOPLE well beloved ! 
Long singled out from all the tribes of Earth 
To render forth God's law, 

And represent those Aims of highest worth, 
Which, like the steadfast stars that Abraham saw, 

Wane not nor are removed 
Though all thing else, through some inherent flaw, 
Grow thin and fade like phantom forms reproved ; 

From out thy midst to judgment rise, 

With words appropriate to our day. 
And strong appeals, that we were wise to heed. 

Those seers and poets who first dared to read 
The primal motives that maintain their sway 

In human nature through the centuries. 

Aye ! and this very hour their cry is heard 

Like some new judgment radical and bold, 
** Think ye God's bounties can be bought and sold ? 

206 



ODE TO ISRAEL. 20/ 

Nay ! the wide earth and all the sea's domain 
Is given to man : and He who is averred 

As truth and justice by the loving heart, 
Speaks quietly to it His thrilling word ; 

And will, for aye, the poor man's cause maintain, 
And blind their ways who seek to seize his part. 

And of the land which is on all conferred 
Take false possession and make sinful gain." 

Yea ! still like revolutionists they cry, 

God is grown weary of the world's dull way. 
The idolatries of men he doth despise, 

And scorns their cold and selfish subtlety, 
Alike in church and politics and trade : 

Where Competition, with tyrannic sway, 
Subverts the eternal law of sympathy 

Given from Sinai and the rifted skies, 
Not for a by-word, but to be obeyed. 

But, nation well beloved, 

Though all your prophets with united voice 
Cry to you and the world ; not therefore now 

Do I imagine ye are greatly moved. 
Or think it needful to renew your vow 

Or claim the spirit by those prophets owned 



2oS POETICAL SERMONS. 

As an efficient Power for aye enthroned 

In the meek hearts of loving seers and true 
Whom God hath sent to-day to all men and to you. 

Nay ! as in the old time 

Ye heard Isaiah and refused his cry, 
And turned from Jeremiah scornfully, 

Nor hearkened unto half of all the seers 
God sent unto you in the latter years, 

Till arrogance and scorn, almost sublime. 
Took unrebuked possession of your priests 

And spiritual joy forsook your feasts, 
So now, alas ! alas ! O race beloved, 

The self same willfulness is proved : 
And I, from Sorrow called and Death's strange door 

To life and song and prophecy once more. 
Shall ne'er be heard by you ; whose heeding I 
implore. 

Yet this is true, O Israel, 

O nation blessed of God and honored most 
In that thy work has been to save the lost : 

And bear the Truth whose light unquenchable 
Hath turned the world's feet back from Death and 
Hell, 



ODE TO ISRAEL. 209 

(Whose threshold else it long e'er now had 
crossed) ; 
The spirit of all Truth hath been with me, 

And therefore am I filled with prophecy 
And words of import ; whereof one might boast, 

Save that they come not from ability. 
But are inspired of life generically ; 

God's dispensation, through a soul most weak. 
If it be so : and I such words may speak. 

This Christmas dawn it came ! 

This morning while I worked away 
And the clear winter stars grew dim before the day, 

E'er yet the eastern heavens grew fair with flame 
My soul (that erst rejoiced to sing and say : 

Now is the Master of all life received 
By all true hearts and everywhere believed) 

Grew dim with grief and shame 
Thinking, O Israel, of thy special loss ; 

In that thou joyest not with us in the name 
Of the dear Love, who bears the world-old cross 

With rapturous hope, too vast and strong to tame, 
And faith that will not take thy " nay " for nay, 

And love that never thinks or dreams of blame 
But cries aloud with voice that none can stay : 



210 POETICAL SERMONS. 

" From heaven to earth I come, my Israel to 
claim ! " 

O Israelitish man ! 

O prophet of the Hebrews, hail ! 
(Such welcome through my inmost spirit ran 

As Night withdrew and Heaven grew pale) ; 
Hast thou enraptured Earth and dost thou fail 

To stir the hearts of thy own kin and clan ? 
O strangest wonder since the world began ! 

Apochryphal and parabolic tale ! 

Nay ! Love is Israel's Lord indeed ! 

And the Almighty is His Saviour still. 
And, whosoever fails, Love shall succeed, 

For His is the divine unalterable will ; 
And that which Love has written man shall read ; 

Yea ! every man ; and, lastly, Israel. 
Christmas^ i8qo. 



THE QUESTION. 

DEAR friend, are you a Christian ? 
O no ! I do not say you ought to be one, or 
stop to show what a catastrophe it is to miss 
this life : 

I asked because it means so much to me, and I 
should hate to see a friend forego so good a 
thing. 

Really the kind of a Christian that I am makes me 
ashamed of myself. 

But all that makes me proud and glad is that I am 
a Christian. 

Better happiness than health ever gave, or the 
streaming sun-light and freshness and charm 
of a spring morning ; 

Better than any praises or applause or any enjoy- 
ment of scenes or shows, or of any perform- 
ances of my own ; 

The chief satisfaction I know, the sole remaining 
satisfaction and matter of which I am proud is 
this : 



212 POETICAL SERMONS. 

That somehow in spite of personal folly, pettiness, 
perversity and conceit, 

The good unspeakable is mine of having learned 
of Christ, and gotten glimpses here and now of 
what his manhood is ; 

And felt that of all powerful things the strongest is 
the tie of felt affinity with Him — 

The soul of manhood all supreme, to whom my 
soul responds according to its power, life, de- 
velopment. 

joy ! I '11 sing that fortune first : 

1 '11 chant myself a Christian first of all and after- 

wards in lower tones I '11 prove my love for 
Buddah, Whitman, Luther, Paul, 

For I am knit by bounds unknown to these. I 
seek to serve the goodness these have served ; 
to know the truth of God as they ; to share the 
Spirit's life in all my daily life ; the courage, 
industry and helpfulness of these, the actual 
righteousness of Christ to share and make ray 
own. 

This is my daily passion, pride and promised por- 
tion too. 

What say you, will you share it ? 



CHRIST AND HIS FRIENDS. 

JESUS, who hated chains and yokes 
That puppet-kings employ, 
Forgave obedience in folks 
Who counted it a joy. 

But evermore he grieved to see 

Their carefulness therein, 
And sighed their lack of liberty 

Next to their love of sin. 

" O servile saints ! I own you not : 

No servants will I have ; 
Draw near and share my utmost thought, 

'T is fellowship I crave. 

"Your works shall greater be than mine. 

If bravely you believe, 
And all the Spirit's aims divine 

Receive as I receive. 

213 



214 POETICAL SERMONS. 

" Nor call me * Lord,' with one accord, 
But * Friend ' and ' Brother ' true ; 

For I have heard from Heaven no word 
Denied by Heaven to you." 



THE KINGDOM. 

CRIES Simon Peter : " By my beard ! When 
once to town we get 
The Rabbi '11 meet the Sanhedrim and ' rattle ' all 

the set. 
Those mummified old Pharisees will find their 

match in him, 
One hour of eloquence and straight he '11 split the 

Sanhedrim ! 
That 's half the battle — more than half — for people 

near and far 
Are hot for insurrection and a patriotic war. 
And I 'm not Peter if a month is passed before we 

see 
The Romans fleeing for their lives and all the na- 
tion free. 
Great Heavens ! and then with what a rush the 

last Reform shall come. 

215 



2l6 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Loud beats my heart foreseeing it although my lips 
be dumb. 

For whensoe'er we speak thereof (let James and 
John confess), 

The Rabbi straightway stops and falls into a 
silentness. 

And yet God's Kingdom is the end that he doth 
ever muse, 

God's Kingdom — that 's to say of course, the King- 
dom of the Jews. 

Nought else save this has turned his face but now 
to rally them 

Who sleep so late a shameful sleep in God's Jeru- 
salem. 

Thence, thence I wear this handy sword and 
nimbly shall it swing 

When Rabbi Jesus owns the shout that hails him 
Israel's King. 

And surely when that day is come we shall be 
known of men, 

And in his Kingdom we shall sit and rule the 
people then. 

Say, Master ! Rabbi ! tell us now how many days 
from hence 

Wilt thou appoint thy ministers and men of con- 
sequence ? 



THE KINGDOM. 217 

Two years, nay ! almost three it is, and still thy 

Kingdom lags, 
And still for robes of state we wear these hypocritic 

rags. 
Rabbi ! thy Kingdom is the end of all our hopes 

and fears, 
But only in thy shining face the dawn of it appears. 
Give us a sign that we may know the hour foretold 

by thee 
When thou wilt take thy throne and crown and set 

the people free." 
Jesus speaks : 
Every man's main concern is God and the Kingdom 

of God. 
For this cause am I known to you, that all may 

trulier know and see the Father, and share the 

satisfactions of his children. 
His Kingdom is not meat and drink ; an office, 

robe or crown. 
'T is righteousness and peace and service, undream- 

able in scope. 
And I, if I be lifted up, shall show men's hearts its 

glory. 
Yea ! I, by mine own life and death inaugurate on 

earth a deeper life of goodness. 



2l8 POETICAL SERMONS. 

It is, it is the Reign of God ! I see it as it is and as 

you cannot see it ! 
Lo ! it is even now at hand : its promise fills the 

night with glorious dawn about me ! 
See ye its morning in my shining face ? 
Dear friends ! the doubting world shall see it yet in 



yours 



Ye shall be even as I am ; I count you friends and 

equals. 
All things that I have of my Father known I share 

with you in perfect confidence. 
Believe ye I am come from God and work his will 

on earth ? 
I say ye too shall work his vv'ill ; I say that man- 
kind's destiny is somehow sealed in you. 
The great and ageless forces of the universe that 

energize the world are even now in you. 
Since I have lived and spoken in your presence I 

know your lives are clean of selfishness forever. 
Beloved ! ye shall pass from death to life ; yea ! ye 

shall love each other ! 
The love that prompts whate'er I say or do shall 

dominate in you all thought and speech and 

action. 
Henceforth why should I talk with you ? That I am 

yours ye know : that you are mine ye know. 



THE KINGDOM. 2ig 

All, all that serve in faith and love are mine ! One 

is the spirit of the life that dwells in all who 

love. 
Enough ! in vain is aught that works to break this 

holy league ! 
Sorrows shall come and wars and trials strange in 

every land and age. 
Ye too shall be suspected even as I, ye too shall be 

betrayed. 
I go to crucifixion first. Silence ! put up thy sword, 

I must unite the world : I must uplift the 

world ! 
Nor sorrow that I go so soon. With you I leave 

the kingdom ! 
So surely as I speak these words, so surely ye your- 
selves shall stir the hearts of millions. 
All shall be moved by you as you are moved by 

me ; your liberty, faith, hope and love shall 

also be the world's. 
Your thrones of influence shall not fail : all else 

shall fail save those empowered through me. 
Go, therefore, into all the world, baptizing all who 

live into a like experience : 
I must be known to all who live : the nature that I 

am is needful unto all : (pertains indeed to all,) 
And I am with you always. 



ENOUGH FOR ME THE CHRISTIAN 
FAITH. 

ENOUGH for me the Christian faith, 
The faith that reigned in Christ is all my 

gospel here. 
To find in life whatever he found suffices me indeed. 
Nor Paul nor John suffices so ; nor Peter, nor the 

Church, nor Luther's mighty words. 
The Christian faith, the faith that owns, " I am the 

Father's Son " suffices me alone. 
The faith that owns : ^^ I am the truth ; I am the 

light and life and thou may est be as J." 
The faith that 's blasphemy to-day. The faith 

that shames the Church and walks the world 

unowned. 
The faith that 's questioned, mocked, denied ; 
The faith that reigned in Christ Himself — I mean 

the Christian faith — 't is that suffices me. 



220 



OUR RIGHTS. 

FATHER ! To good beyond degree thou callest 
us in thy love and Fatherhood divine. 
Health, reason, joy too much despised but not by 

thee despised, thou deem'st thy children's rights. 
Obedience, too, thou deem'st their right and liberty 

their right — that 's with obedience one. 
Content and peace thou deem'st their right ; 
Great happiness all day in Thee thou deem'st their 

right ; 
Converse with thee thou deem'st their right ; some 

rest, relief in Thee in toil, thou deem'st their 

right. 
Nor aught that's thought nor dreamt alone : nor 

houses, wealth nor goods alone, thou meanest 

for them. 
Forgiveness, purity for them, the tender heart for 

them, the patriot's the reformer's life, the mar- 
tyr's stake for them ! 
Yea ! best the consciousness of thee ; unchanged 

by day or night : obscured and dimmed by 

nought, 

221 



222 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Aye ! best, in simplest duties here ; in faithfulness 
unpraised thy comradship is known. 

For revelation is our right : the Spirit is our glori- 
ous right where'er we go or bide. 

Thereby we come unto ourselves. Thereby per- 
form those acts that prove thy presence best. 

Yes ! Love or Truth ! it is thy stress. It is the 
Christ in us who overcomes the world. 

Not once alone in Christ thou spokest. Thou 
speakest in all we know of valid manhood here. 

This world is valid made through Thee. Life's 
wonder, worth and truth, established is in thee. 

The charm of gentle lives is thine. The patience 
of the Saints and the Reformer's cry of protest 
is of thee. 

Our Father, thou ! in ways unknown : even as in 
ways well known thy Fatherhood is proved. 

Through childhood's trust we learn of thee ; 
through boyhood's trials, too, and manhood's 
larger cares. 

Thy Fatherhood through all we learn nor any- 
thing exhaust 'till it reports of thee. 

In all we know or dare thou art ; of all that men 
call ill we miss the harm in thee. 

'Though poor, how easy is that fate, since ne'er 
from us it takes the joys of service here. 



OUR RIGHTS. 223 

Though here misunderstood, unknown, so much 

the more the days to come in us shall find. 
Aye ! and though here misunderstood, here too 

best understood as only lovers are. 
All, all of good through thee we have ! Thou 

grievest to think thy sons should e'er their 

rights forego. 
Think not that Christ disdained his rights, think 

not that joy and hope and love he laid aside. 
Think not he sacrificed such rights. He sacrificed 

alone what hindered him therefrom. 
All others sacrifice their rights. All others waste 

their lives, but never so did he. 
He deemed his right the Power of God — even to 

redeem mankind he deemed a right allowed. 
Nor special personal rights he claimed. He claimed 

for all the rights he owned allowed to him. 
Thence passed he forth through death and life. 

To demonstrate man's rights was mainly here 

his task. 
Thou, Father, also wiliest our rights. Thou bidest 

us too, redeem, inspire mankind at large. 
Our right is to be joined with all : to live, to die 

with all, and rise renewed with all. 



FACTS FOREVER. 

READER ! Hear the Case with me, 
I 'm living for Eternity. 
Here in time on Human ground 
I Eternity have found. 
I cannot die : for I have sworn 
By present times and times unborn 
To be a friend and lover free 
Of Manhood in Eternity. 

Hail ! ye sons of ages hence, 
I 'm to you of consequence. 
Already am I at your side 
And sketch your lineaments with pride, 
And you shall say — I hear you say — 
" Some one before has walked this way, 
And told of us and understood 
The risen people's later mood. 
He was of us ! and daily we 
224 



FACTS FOREVER. 225 

Fulfil in joy his prophecy, 
Because beyond his day he ran 
Proficient in the lore of Man ! " 
O joy ! and shall a foolish boy 
Endure to enjoy such joy, 
And pleasures have that never since 
Were known to potentate or prince ? 
Yea ! yea ! a boy of God's is he, 
And to their own eternity 
The Father and the Spirit cry 
" Welcome ! son, eternally ! " 



ODE TO BEAUTY. 

ONE passion has been with me since my birth, 
And for one pleasure have I lived on earth. 
Nor may I fear to tell this secret joy — 
This fervent yearning which, when but a boy, 
Constrained me ever all fair sights to see ; 
Climb hills to view wide fields and follow streams 
Far through dim woods ; watching for glints and 

gleams 
Of wondrous beauty, such as might enthral 
My spirit for an hour, and set me free 
From care and doubt and loneliness, and all 
That weighs on those who labor hopelessly. 

For what is Beauty's service but to ope 
To yearning hearts the temple doors of Hope, 
And bid us trust that life and nature still 
Are permeate by some appreciable 
226 



ODE TO BEAUTY. 227 

And blessed spirit who ordains that we 
Shall find all lovely things mysteriously- 
Provocative of joy ; and learn to heed 
Their admonitions and rejoice to read 
In every sight and sound a heavenly prophecy? 

Nor is this all ; for Beauty doth not shine 
Alone in shady vales and lonely streams ; 
Nor solely break from Heaven's clear hyaline, 
Nor haunts she only the poor artist's dreams, 
Or midnight, cobwebbed with the moon's wet 

beams ; 
For deep in human nature there are gleams 
Of her essential radiance ; yea, her light 

Shines upon man — a world of varied mood, 

A sea, a city or a solitude ; 
A Pontine marsh or Himalayan height 
Or all or aught material nature seems. 

And Beauty is but one ; and stands alone 
In being one. For tree and hill and star 
Change, and were not last night what they this 

morning are ; 
But Beauty is the everlasting one. 
And all things speak of Beauty without care 



228 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Simply by being; for their forms are fit 
To their condition and rejoice in it ; 
Their natural proportions make them fair. 
Birds sing by day and bats by night must flit. 
Frost-work and snow almost with flowers compare. 
Nature herself hath Beauty's secret hit 
And witnesses of spirit unaware. 

But most of all in History she shines ; 
In actions high and words harmonious ; 
True laws essayed upon ideal lines 
And characters whose worth makes glorious 
The name of man. For verily no light 
Did ever break from heaven's vault at night 
('T was this the angels to the shepherds said !) 
So clear and radiant as his manhood was 
Who laid upon his mother's breast his head 
And, afterwards, throughout the land did pass, 
Exorcising with truth all shadows dread ; 
His life a perfect and unstained glass 
Wherein true manhood's pattern might be read. 

O, before chaos there was harmony ! 

And sweet agreement e'er this world began, 

Which seems a discord to the ear of man, 



ODE TO BEAUTY. 229 

But to the mind of God is melody ! 

And Beauty always was ; and Earth and Sea 

And Time and Sin and Fear and things that shun 

Its presence now, nor greet it graciously, 

Shall, at the last, yield it dominion ; 

And Light appear in perpetuity 

To crown the Divine Plan. 

Goodness is Beauty, Character is Man ; 
And the Ideal World eternal is ; 
E'er Nature was or Time or Change began 
Love out of love in Hope created this 
Man-haunted world of silent processes, 
That in each motion and phenomenon 
Suggests the secret and Eternal One 
Whom but to know aright is peace and bliss. 
Shine forth, thou Beauty, older than the Sun ! 
O perfect Manhood, full of truth and grace, 
In thee do we behold the Father's face, 
In thee is our eternal life begun ! 
Thou art the measure of the Human Race 
And still to share thee is to make God known. 



THE SOUL'S AGE. 

OIT is false that two and twenty years 
, Can sum the ages that my soul has run ; 
This spirit's more than aught it looks upon, 
This self is older than the robe it wears. 
I am another than my hopes and fears, 
I am another than this flesh and bone. 
My life is hid as in a cave of stone, 
Far, far away from human smiles and tears ! 
Look on me, eyes, and see whate'er you can, 
Look on me, friends, in speculation still ; 
Or tell the date and history of my birth. 
I smile, well knowing that since time began, 
There slept in Adam something of my will, 
From him derived who formed the Heavens and 
Earth ! 



230 



TO A POET WHO DENIES A FUTURE 
LIFE. 

IF flesh and blood is all there is on earth, 
It is a waste to worship or to boast. 
And he who comforts, he deceives me most, 
For hope and courage have no final worth. 
Effort is weakness, and what grief is mirth ! 
Poetry is a lie and I am lost ; 
For prized virtue is not worth its cost, 
Nor man himself the sorrows of his birth. 
Now, who believes it, let him sing no more, 
Nor let him listen to another's song. 
Nor heed the sudden joy his heart might know 
Wandering at dawn the loud, exultant shore ; 
Or gazing, where the expectant East along 
Light breaks and day, and all we long for so ! 



231 



THE OTHER WORLD. 

DWELT Christ in Heaven ? Fear not nor think 
it fabulous, nor think he came from far, 
'T is you and I who dwell afar and tread an unknown 

world so torpid are our senses, 
Yet are we also in Eternity and this metropolis we 

walk is crowded with the infinite. 
Not fairy land nor phantom land is strange. 
'T is but the actual that is strange. 'T is but im- 
mediate things that finally confound. 
'T is you and I — 't is speech and will, 't is practical 

good sense transcends the Human Reason. 
Content I go 'mid mysteries insoluble ; (knew I 

completely aught I know I 'd hardly feel at 

home.) 
Variety has failed not yet. I think the Father's 

house has unconceived surprises. 
Youth, middle life, and age are each a separate 
232 



THE OTHER WORLD. 233 

world, with different angles, hues, perspectives, 
readings, each. 

Beyond is more ! Old age is a beginning ; the ut- 
most thought a germ, suggestion ; wisdom su- 
preme, a clue. 

And sleep that 's real ne'er warrants poor suspicion ; 
the deepest sleep I 've known lacked nothing 
of effect. 

Then hail ! Among experienced things I 'm glad 
that death is numbered. 

Think not variety fails there. Think not that con- 
sequence, result, effect, is absent there. 

Naught 's absent there. Not God, not law, not 
Manhood I suspect, and not recurrent force. 

Hail, Infinite ! In death and life, identified alike in 
body and in soul ; 

Suspicioned not in fairy lore ; experienced and 
enjoyed in duty, service, love. 

Nor all experienced and enjoyed until the life that 's 
God's fulfils in us its force. 



THE APOSTLE'S DESIRE. 

SAUL in wonder and great awe 
After death the Master saw, 
Nor did the Form that once was slain 
Rise before his soul in vain, 
" Saul of Tarsus, turn and see, 
Lo ! thou persecutest me. 
Far from earth I suffer still 
Even as on the awful hill. 
Who harms the good, my spirit tries 
And my body crucifies." 

What Paul beheld we, too, may see 

If only confident as he ; 

For the Truth, above daylight, 

Is ready for the opened sight. 

With the same spirit shall we grieve ? 

Or fail to see and to believe ? 

Yet in this city East and West, 

234 



THE APOSTLE'S DESIRE. 235 

Wander thousands much distressed, 
Who never Paul's great vision see : 
Yet need the sight as much as he. 

Through all these streets, in brick confined, 
Wanders still the human mind. 
By trade, by commerce unsufficed 
The human heart is seeking Christ. 
Science has made the skies above 
Cold and barren of all love. 
Civilization makes the street 
Cold and flat for human feet. 
Houses of stone on either side 
Expound the strength of human pride. 
Distinctions in the social dress 
Add unto the poor's distress. 
Hard, hard indeed, are human lives 
Where only competition thrives. 
Aye, narrow, dull and sterile too, 
Till Love has done what Love can do 
And on the soul, betrayed and lost, 
Descends the pure and Holy Ghost ! 
Then doth he rise, like Fox of old, 
When Doubt and Fear had gotten hold 
Of England's heart. Then doth he cry 



236 POETICAL SERMONS. 

And stir the nation mightily. 

Knovvest thou, how, by the Spirit sent 

Through Litchfield's lanes the Quaker went, 

And in the public market stood 

And saw the dreadful Pool of Blood ? 

Great was the man when so he trod 

Possessed by the prevailing God ! 

Fools at the corners mocking stand, 

But dare not 'gainst him lift the hand. 

He dreamed of human sorrows great 

And the blood was at his feet. 

No man he saw : but the soul's woe 

Whose anguish at his feet did flow. 

Yea, his compassion was so great 

That he shared the sinners' fate. 

And his strong affection free 

Suffered with Humanity. 

" The word of power, high and true, 

Lo ! it Cometh unto you ; 

Unworthy to behold its light. 

Wanderers in the shades of night. 

Men and women ! hear my voice ; 

Turn, and in the truth rejoice. 

For the Love that doth not fail 

With the people must prevail. 



THE APOSTLE'S DESIRE. 237 

Will ye struggle against God ? 
Whose shining law is a bright rod ; 
Swift to bless, or scourge or drive ; 
Slay the strong, the dead revive ! " 
In vain he cries or utters prayer. 
For the people do not care. 
Unheeded is his voice to-day, 
But dream not it has passed away. 
Again amongst us it shall break 
And the people captive take : 
For the living truth is strong 
And it waits ; and suffers long 
Disdain, and contradiction too, 
Such as only Jesus knew. 

To-day my feet shall tread the street 
And my heart these words repeat. 
But I am not free and bold 
Nor dare I speak as Fox of old. 
Yet I know the words he said 
Are more to man than daily bread, 
Whereby the flesh can live alone 
While the famished soul doth moan. 
Lo ! the churches of the land 
Look : but do not understand. 



238 POETICAL SERMONS. 

From them the people led astray 
Turn every one to his own way. 
'T was so in Fox's time I trow 
And 't is so in New York now. 

Though I be weak I can arise 

And though unlearned I can be wise : 

And though my past be all misspent, 

What 's left shall be omnipotent, 

Because my life fulfilled shall be 

With Love's eternal energy : 

That doth not cease to cry and strive 

Until the dead be made alive ! 

O best, and mightiest, and first, 

To-day upon our city burst ! 



THE DIVINE LIFE AND CHURCH. 

GOD is himself the life that He doth give — 
The Great Reward, not always understood- 
The child-heart that believes that Fatherhood 
Has infinite power and sole prerogative, 
And asks not anything except to live 
In its remembrance and solicitude, 
And so be certain of unheard-of good ; 
And, next, He is the power imaginative 
Whereby with farthest stars we dwell at home. 
And morally inherit " worlds to come " 
Before we die : and, next, He needs must be 
Hope, in whose soul inheres the authority 
Of laws ideal : and lastly and above 
All else we know that God's own life is Love. 

But speak not thou of man's poor faith in God. 
God's faith in man is more and greater far ! 
Else had He never suffered him to mar 
Himself so much ; or still with him abode. 

239 



^40 POETICAL SERMONS. 

And God's own faith it was that God bestowed 
Upon that gentle Lover who made war 
With Hatred in Judea ; and took the scar 
Of Bigotry and Pride and all the load 
Incalculable of man's sin and shame, 
Because He reckoned that man's destiny 
Was not the life of animals alone — 
The feeble brutish life from which he came — 
But wisdom, freedom and integrity 
And Love, the very genius of God's Son. 

And all that ever Christ professed or knew 

Pertains to Man, and to our race is given ; 

For our Humanity is heir of Heaven ; 

And all Christ's faith, hope, love and wisdom, too, 

Man yet shall share ; and greater wonders do 

Than He who stilled the waters, tempest driven, 

Or fed the famished multitudes at even, 

Or crowds of longing sinners 'round him drew. 

Nor be thou certain that man finite is, 

Nor dwells not in eternity — 'though here — 

But say of Man ; the Father's life is His. 

And say of God, He doth with man appear. 

And know, tho' clouds of Time be 'round thee furled 

The mind of Christ is the Eternal World. 



THE DIVINE LIFE AND CHURCH. 24 1 

And in this world, that World is immanent ! 

Nor otherwhere than in this city waits 

The Christ of God to fling apart the gates 

Of that Jerusalem whose sure descent 

Is in the Divine Will omnipotent ; 

Which, age by age, our world appropriates. 

For what is progress but to win those states 

Of heart and mind that are an argument 

For that Great Kingdom which the Christ foreknew ? 

Yea ! this is progress ; that God's life should be 

No more a mystery known but to a few, 

But man's experience shared increasingly ; 

As is the Vision of the uprising sun, 

First, from far heights, by watchers guessed alone. 

Church of the spirit of the life of Christ ! 

Thou that hast called and raised us from the dead 

And nourished us with secret wine and bread. 

And warned us when we would have sacrificed 

The hopes and motives of the Christian life, 

To shadowy shapes of selfish sorcery 

And idol-like indulgence ; look and see 

What spoil we bring from out our days of strife. 

And take it all : for it to thee belongs, 

Beloved inspirer of our lives and songs, 



242 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Lady of God, Elect and beautiful ! 
Through whose example we are dutiful, 
At least in this, that we return a share 
Of that thy love has caused our hearts to bear. 

No caste the church alloweth ! " High " or" low " 
" Greater " or *' lesser " is unreckoned there. 
No more is he who lifts his voice in prayer 
Than he whose silence means he worships so ; 
Nor yet doth one before another go 
Because of learning, birth, or talents rare. 
His cultured ways or garments he doth wear — 
Nought, nought of this the people ever know ! 
Yet, some there are whose wisdom serves to guide, 
And some whose strength is in affection found, 
And others for interpretation fit ; 
And some are weak and must at rest abide, 
And some in worldly wars have suffered wound, 
And yet each serveth ; and is glad of it. 

And out of gladness each doth seek and find 
New service ever ; and if it be shown 
That one has prospered greatly, every one. 
Rejoicing, speaks thereof with ready mind ; 
And if some other somewhat falls behind, 



THE DIVINE LIFE AND CHURCH. 243 

No blame at all has he to think upon ; 
But, being cheered, he springeth up anon — 
Glad of a fall that proved the rest so kind ! 
So while true love doth every heart possess, 
No shame has Failure and no pride Success. 
Nay, they be nothing thought of ! But, instead, 
Thanksgiving unto God is ever made, 
Alike for that which seems a natural good, 
And things unloved because not understood. 



SYMPATHY AND BROTHERHOOD. 

HOW can they know Thee who would live alone 
And separate themselves from human kind ? 
Thou, who didst live and die that Thou mightest 

bind 
The millions of Humanity in one, 
And grievest yet because it is undone ; 
While, in the Gospel thou didst leave behind. 
Thy all-professing church has failed to find 
The principle and power of Unison. 
Lord ! by that love of man that thou didst teach 
Above all doctrine, bid this sorrow end ; 
And let us, like thy old apostles, know 
Great spiritual sympathies that reach 
Remotest lives and gloriously transcend 
All difference and distinction — Even so ! 

For lo ! all power is given to Sympathy. 
She can deliver and redeem alone ; 

244 



SYMPATHY AND BROTHERHOOD. 245 

She is the living and unfailing One, 
The last and greatest of the Heavenly Three 
Who make in man a Holy Family ; 
And gracious is her presence on the Throne, 
Whose Word ordains for us communion 
With Art, with Nature and with Poesy. 
She is not less than the dear Son of God, 
And save for her our souls would be so dim 
That we could have no sense at all of Him, 
Although He dwelt within our ov.n abode. 
She is the Holy Spirit. Aye ! and they 
Who named her so possessed her in their day. 

And can we dream that heedless all of her 

We shall do well or wisely by our race ? 

We who have harmed ourselves and cried for grace 

And have not any knowledge but to err — 

Shall we dismiss the soul's Interpreter 

And give to Wit her glory and her place, 

Saying : " Be God unto us for a space, 

Why should we with a Higher one confer ? " 

Nay ! more than Wisdom is the love of right 

And more than justice loyalty to good 

And deeper than men's thoughts the Soul of Man 

Where God enthrones his spirit to unite 



246 POETICAL SERMONS. 

The souls of all in some great Brotherhood 
Proclaimed by Poets since the World began. 

Thus was it that the Pilgrim Fathers true 
Learned, on the middle ocean tossed about, 
The strength of faith ; the feebleness of doubt, 
And what united hearts of hope can do. 
And thus the friends of Loyola, 'though few, 
Wrought miracles and taught of Christ throughout 
All Heathenesse ; and kept their courage stout 
Whatever sun oppressed or tempest blew. 
And latter days the same great lesson teach : 
Think of the early Quakers and be glad ! 
Remember how the Methodists arose : 
And (since we need not to such distance reach) 
Wliat blessed times in Concord once they had 
When old Brook-Farm was white with winter snows. 

Aye ! and the greater Poets, everyone. 
Have fed their genius with their sympathies 
And shared the life of great communities, 
And with the'r times held close communion. 
So Dante, though an exile from his town, 
Has filled the world with Florence-memories ; 
And Shakespeare loved his country's histories, 



SYMPATHY AND BROTHERHOOD. 247 

And all the glory that on England shone. 

And studious Milton, for a patriot's cause, 

Gave both his eyes and all his middle age, 

Nor set himself from all his time apart. 

And 'mid the ringing heavens would Shelley pause, 

Thrilled with a mighty and prophetic rage 

'Gainst the oppressors of the Human Heart. 

Almighty God ! Strange are thy words and ways ! 

Thy plans and purposes and hidden ends 

Are seldom such as any man commends, 

Or worldly wisdom finds a voice to praise. 

" They cannot be accomplished in our days," 

Says the old man : And the young man defends 

His forefathers and to their judgment bends, 

' Though the new thought disturbs him and delays. 

And only one or two, or nine or ten 

Out of a thousand, swear by Truth itself 

And will not hearken to a lesser voice ; 

And they become those non-conforming men 

That sacrifice their prospects and their pelf, 

But make the hearts of future times rejoice. 

And truly those who serve the Spirit still 
Must ever revolutionary be 



248 POETICAL SERMONS. 

In purpose, practice and philosophy, 
To much the world accounteth laudable. 
For serve they not a reason and a will 
Higher than those which rule society ? 
And have they not proclaimed abundantly 
That they will all the Laws of Love fulfil ? 
Ah, yes ! and but to do it in our day 
Would sweep full many practices away 
That we have cherished as our fathers did ; 
Nor slavery alone should know decay — 
But all the woes in our wage system hid 
Would, by co-operation, be forbid. 

And then should competition serve no more 

The ends of individual success, 

Nor crown the narrow brows of Selfishness, 

But all should share the world's increasing store ; 

And ships should freely sail from shore to shore ; 

Not that one land might other lands oppress — 

Filling its vaults by making others less— 

But that our Earth (its total surface o'er). 

Might richer gifts provide at lowest cost ; 

And nothing through monopolies be lost ; 

But every land its proper offering 

Render to Man. ' Till all should live, almost, 



SYMPATHY AND BROTHERHOOD. 249 

On that which now we waste in quarrelling — 
And poets true, our blest condition sing. 

For why are all the singers silenced now 
Save that an ever present- sense of wrong 
Done to Mankind prevents the mounting song 
And clouds the radiance of the poet's brow ? 
For, listening to the voices high and low, 
Alike of seraph-band and Human throng. 
He marks the dissonance their notes among 
And grief forbids him to fulfil his vow. 
But were Eternal Justice to return 
And selfishness, that knows not any law, 
Be set aside even for a single hour. 
How should his soul in mighty peans burn, 
And the astonished Earth be still with awe 
At such a dispensation of God's power ! 



THE APOSTLES. 

WHAT lacks the man whose will doth never 
swerve ? 
Him by a law occult doth nature serve 
And him alone. But what indeed must be 
The order, nature, measure and degree 
Of providential grace that so shall touch 
One's human heart and change its grain so much 
That, henceforth. Will in him shall be no more 
The fickle slave but reigning Emperor 
Of all his wishes, passions, thought and bliss ? 
O, say what is it that shall compass this 
Most wished, blessed change miraculous, 
That one should be himself, and ever thus 
Truly the same ? Nay ! say not, " 'T is in vain," 
Or, "This has never been," but first explain 
The constant lives of Peter, John and Paul, 
(At one time, doubtless, wavering, good men all), 
250 



THE APOSTLES. 2$ I 

Who by some great disclosure, dread and high, 

Of what doth lurk in man of Potency 

Hidden, dynamic, were so overcome 

That thence they could but walk among men dumb 

And mightily by actions here and there 

Witness of what 't were folly to declare, 

By mortal speech to such as lacked a sense 

Even to imagine of the evidence 

Of God that filled them, and did thence condemn 

As false the Truth that overmastered them. 

These master-natures our exemplars be 

In manners, wisdom and integrity : 

And folks astonished at the grand display 

Of genuine manhood, gaze at them to-day, 

As travellers bold on mountains glorious. 

And ask : " What nobler souls shall we discuss 

E'er these have been considered and explained ? " 

For think a little while how they arraigned 

(Not by their words, but simply by their deeds) 

The whole wide world, with all its cults and creeds, 

Upon the charge of littleness : and brought 

Its customs, fashions and ideals to nought. 

Supplanting them with such as erst were deemed 

The fair but foolish hopes of men who dreamed. 



252 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Yet some would question of that Providence 
Most blessed, both in kind and consequence, 
Whereby alone these honest hayseeds caught 
A sense of life and man, that to the thought 
(The trival thought) of their past lives did seem, 
More revolutionary than a dream ; 
Though (once established), certainly more firm. 
Than mightiest hills and surer than the term 
Of noon and midnight and the seasons four. 

But wherefore bid me tell that story o'er. 

Whose spell with aye increasing power doth hold 

The heart of man the more it is retold ? 

Nay ! but I will not. But assured be, 

That mainly 't was the personality, 

Of Rabbi Jesus that in these achieved 

This glorious triumph, that their souls conceived 

Newly of life and such ideals bred 

And by such visions were admonished 

That, rustics as they were, the world allows 

No crowns like those it places on their brows 

To any seers or poets of our days 

Though in themselves they be as worthy praise. 

Yes ! 't was their Rabbi wrought this miracle, 
And that was all they knew or cared to tell. 



THE APOSTLES. 253 

Nay ! 't was their mission to repeat it o'er, 
And as they thought upon it more and more, 
So much the more they sorrowed at the blame. 
Of their past madness and the crying shame 
Of this dead world that could so long refuse 
The eternal consolation, and the news 
Of such great comfort and did only smile 
While they grew hotter with it all the while. 

O, then, then, then it was they took an oath, 
To live unprecedentedly : aye ! both 
Because the nature of the good bestowed 
Demanded it and 't was a debt they owed 
To the Bestower : and, assuredly next 
Because his life unparalleled was a text 
Enough for them, and ever seemed to plead 
For heroism and some thrilling deed 
Of absolute abandonment, to prove 
The everlasting triumph of his love. 

Yet were they simple, quiet, peaceable ; 
With nothing else to think about or tell 
Except his life, his love, his way, his word. 
And how his common daily presence stirred 
Their stolid hearts and made them quicker beat 



254 POETICAL SERMONS. 

When they but marked him coming down the street 
And pausing kindly at a friend's address, 
The soul of fervor and of gentleness ! 
Then, first, in them the patriot's spirit burned ; 
And for his mighty leadership they yearned. 
"For if," said they, "his power he do but show 
Where are the legions we cannot o'erthrow ? 
Yea ! when he 's awed the temple-officers 
His speech shall stir the town ! and when it stirs 
Our blessed city shall be free of Rome, 
And then the Messianic times will come." 
But, rather, now on other scenes they mused 
And saw him slandered, ridiculed, accused. 
Snared, crucified, and buried ; yea ! and then 
(Joy beyond language,) welcomed back again 
Into their midst ; while wonderingly, at last. 
They understood the meaning of the past. 

Nor all at once the whole great truth they knew ; 
But, as they mused, its bulk upon them grew, 
As on the traveller's vision day by day 
The monstrous hills of awful Himmaleh. 

Oh, glorious year ! When first they did surmise 
Him the Eternal, and did thence apprise 



THE APOSTLES. 255 

Rightly the meaning of his daily life 

And glorious message and perpetual strife 

With formalists and pious doctrinaires ; 

Who deemed his faith and courage but the snares 

Of Satan — since their natures lacked the same. 

And then anew into their minds there came 

Thoughts of his sayings, wonderful and wise, 

And all his candor ; and their memories 

Like the pearl-seekers of the Orient sea, 

Deep diving went and seeking eagerly 

For treasured words that he had said to them ; 

New valued now since each did diadem 

No rabbi's brow that took some doctor's curse, 

But Wisdom's self , Lord of the Universe! 

Consider, Reader, if thou wilt with me 

Some of those pearls of truth ; for it may be 

That thou like these hast with a casual glance 

Missed something of their secret radiance. 

" My peace I give you in a world of strife." 

" I am the Resurrection and the life." 

" I with the Father of all souls am one." 

'* Through me you shall do more than I have done : " 

" Behold the heaven and earth shall pass away, 

But not my truth ; that, rather, from to-day 



256 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Begins to know dominion and though you 
Shall change the nations, making all things new." 

Long on such words they mused : and it did stir 
Their hearts to dreaming that they heedless were 
When first he spoke to them ; yea ! and more it 

stirred 
Their wondering souls to think he had preferred 
Such heads as theirs before the kings of thought 
To be the learners of the truth he taught, 
And only listeners to such words as broke 
Never before from any man who spoke. 
"Ah ! Lord, what answer shall be ours to this ? " 
(So questioned they) and when they thought of his 
Invariable loyalty and love 
They knew not any way whereby to prove 
Their gratitude and manhood save to be 
As faithful unto Him as, to them, he : 
And measure manhood here by loyalty. 

This was their spirit ; this the glowing heat 
In which they labored, making life replete 
With confidence and courage and content. 
This was their joy ; and everywhere they went 
Men noted them as born to overcome. 



THE APOSTLES. 257 

And still before their witness men grew dumb, 
And ancient wisdom had no voice to speak, 
And pagan rites and rituals grew weak, 
And the world faltered on its wayward track. 
And heard the voice of Jesus call it back. 

Thus these were changed and altered and renewed ; 

And thereby came they unto fortitude, 

And heroism such as puts to shame 

Our trival lives and makes us feel the shame 

And littleness of all we do and are. 

Thus do they stand in each particular 

Examples of the might of love, that can 

Awake so much divinity in man 

And may do so again : but dare we pray 

That Christ will work alike in us to-day. 

Yea ! we will ask it ; knowing his intent, 
And that his Spirit is not weak nor spent : 
But, having called us to apostleship, 
Will neither let us turn aside nor slip. 
Until our " witness " shall achieve on earth 
Whatever end He meant who gave it birth. 



CHRISTIANITY IS REVOLUTIONARY. 

CHRISTLIKE," you say, "and yet not revo- 
lutionary" ? 
No, no ! Whate'er is Christlike here o'er topples, as 

of old. Conformity's whole house. (The 

fashion of this world shall pass) 
I see its timbers trembling now. I see its rafters 

sag. Its creaking beams I hear ! 
One struggle of the spiritual life ! One prayer ! One 

effort of the Soul, empowered of God alone. 
And level with the Earth itself shall lay the won- 
drous mass by Superstition reared. 
While free, as erst, the Soul shall walk ; no temple 

now nor form of ritual asking, 
Save that which daily life itself — its various duties, 

needs and offices — affords. 



258 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 

OR 

THE HEART OF THE REPUBLIC : 

A RHAPSODY. 

THOU near One, immanent in daily life 
And household duties and the least affairs, 
Who yet united'st us to the commonwealth 
Of Natural forces and the breadths of space — 
This universe — and all the stars of night — 
Our Father — dearest and most loved of all, 
Who makest the right desire a blessed feast, 
And movest the hearts of mothers to have faith 
When all is taken away that is most dear — 
Thou, and none other it is, that thrillest the world. 
And stirrest the hearts of birds buried in leaves, 
To shake out gladness from their trembling throats 
And die exhausted by that effort sweet ! 

259 



26o POETICAL SERMONS. 

But not with living things alone Thou dwellest, 

Who yet inspirest Beauty. For through Thee 

The clouds seem sacred and the waters whist, 

And frosty stars become intense, and throb 

As if in triumph that they shared Thy force, 

And felt the victory of Thy soul in them ! 

And drawest Thou nigh to the dead stones of Earth, 

That lack not moss nor secret gems of fire, 

Yet not to mortals ? Not to suffering men 

Who toil the day through and are weak at night? 

Nay ! Nearer than this fragile mystic Form — 

Awful and pale — wherein Thou clothest us here 

'Till the Division of Nature be announced. 

Thou waitest ; and hast been felt and frankly 

served. 
Wherefore the forms of Nature in this world, 
Light, and the evening sky, and the hushed clouds, 
And days remembered, and the thoughts of friends, 
Are dearer and more fruitful ; and possess 
Meanings and comforts that endow the soul 
And give it courage. Aye ! one righteous act 
Done in the knowledge of the will of God 
Is as a key ; unlocking to the soul. 
Life, and the world, and things unseen as yet. 
Yea, dreamless possibilities there are 



HENRY WARD BEE CHER. 26 1 

That open freely to the pure in heart ; 

Who, by their natures, do interpret still 

The Nature of the Eternal ; and surmise 

That secret World from which this world has sprung. 

God is that World ! And all this universe, 

The outbreak of His own interior Nature 

Upon our human faculties ! And blest 

Are they who share this secret : and are bold 

To see with reverent and unfaltering eyes 

Order and joy and blessing dominant ! 

And what they see within, and v/hat without, 

(Equivalent in nature) seems as one ; 

And one it is, and equal ! For tlie soul 

Made perfect in its purpose, stands secure ; 

Freed from the snare of things irrelevant 

And by that Law adopted which remains 

God's v/ill — the source and substance of events. 

O from this height of thought how wide a stretch 

For vision opens ! Look, my friend, and see 

The hushed Empyrean thronged with burning 

cloud 
The quiet tide beyond — the town of men — • 
The City of the Spirits of the Vailed ! 
Then, think, if still thou canst endure the strain, 
What this world 'round thee means. 



262 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Something it means, 
And something it expresses and affirms 
Good to the centre ! Yea, and adequate 
To the fulfilment of the heart's last hope, 
That still beyond the horizon of man's thought 
Flies on and on, and finds no end for flight. 
But what relation hath our daily toil 
And sorrow in this world to those wide skies. 
That stretch of burning glory and high gleam ? 
What means the sobbing tide, easing its heart 
Around ten thousand shores : or that strange hush 
Which spells the autumn woods at night's approach ? 
Much ! for the Heart that dominates the worlds 
Is not unmindful of us. We are knit 
To Nature, and all Nature knit to us ; 
And by one interpenetrating Law 
Of free obedience to our highest thought 
We live to-day and shall not cease to live ! 

But what shall I say more ? This quiet room, 
Wherein I sit this evening, doth not lack 
Great witnesses to the Eternal Truth. 
Shall the wide glory of the burning West, 
Seen often from this window, speak of One 
Whose Law in Beauty stirs the dreaming soul 



HENRY WARD BEECHER. 263 

To wonder and belief? Doubtless ; but, hark ! 

Doth not the curtain at my window here 

Shake in the wind ? Doth not this feeble hand, 

Wherewith I hold my pen, tremble and stir ? 

Doth not this mind, still working in itself, 

Give issue to invisible delights 

Which to express is as a mystery 

And a Creation ? Ah, but 't is Thy Law 

That, silent, standeth in this chamber now 

And bringeth all to pass. Thou, Thou wert 

served 
When first I issued into this wide world 
And looked on hills afar, and breathed the day. 
Unconscious yet of all the life I shared. 
But Thou wert served more truly when my will 
Determined first to break its sensual snare, 
And stand secure and steadfast in the faith 
Ordained by Thee : called thenceforth to pursue 
Its nature in the Nature of Thy Christ. 
Then burst the husks of life's immortal seed 
And forth there sprang that destined Nature new, 
(Determinate before the worlds were formed) 
Whose secret Law, more ancient than the hills, 
I daily keep, not perfectly, but hope 
With eagerness unguessed, at last to keep. 



264 POETICAL SERMONS. 

But Other theme is mine than here to trace 
A wasteful life — a poor and treacherous love — 
Him rather let me chant — the powerful Soul 
O'ershadowing still the Land with recent flight, 
Beecher — the Man of men and all his time, 
Whose Will walked free and first before the world 
And this United States ; whose voice he was, 
And made its meaning known : not only here 
Where all men heard, but to the farthest hills 
Of Europe and the ranges of the East. 
This Man I chant as first. Not scorning him, 
Lincoln, the true, one heart of genuine strain ; 
Nor that pure Sage beloved, to scholars lost, 
Carlyle's best friend : nor any soul more dear 
To thee or others or some special school. 
Enough to each, of fame and praise belong, 
And shall, to each, be given ; as unto him 
Hath not, as yet, been given ; nor shall be yet, 
Nor can, 'till ages pass and men grow calm, 
And not calm only, but more great of heart 
To comprehend high passions and great heats 
That none may comprehend save those who share. 

Ah ! not to praise a man, nor any dust 
Nor outward thing, I speak ; but to declare 



HENRY WARD BEECHER. 265 

Spirit and soul and their unreckoned work 

Not only through the wilderness of space — 

Great Nature's haunt — but in this human world, 

Aye, even this Nation and before our eyes. 

The deep hath many wonders. There are waves 

That, rising almost in the middle sea, 

Seem to exalt the tide for miles around 

And move in conscious grandeur towards the shore. 

And do not Nations likewise feel the lift 

Of spiritual forces ? Is there nought 

Beneath their moving surface ? No great might 

Of wisdom and of good ; that, at the word, 

In-gathering all its power may not uprear 

Its very level and exhalt its height ? 

Aye ! It hath been ; but never without toil 

And inward workings and strange sudden cries. 

Nor ever without Voices raised above 

The common speech of mortals. Then appear 

The prophets — spirits not themselves alone 

But channels of a Greater. They proclaim 

Not their wills only ; but that mightier Will 

That oversways the world and all events 

And wins its own accomplishment unhelped. 

This Soul was one who suffered that high sway 

That bears men on beyond the reach of self, 



266 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Reason or thought or consciousness of art 
' Till, lost, they cry : and what they cry becomes 
The affirmation of that mightier Soul 
Who spake before their lips were formed for 
speech. 

But how shall I describe that boundless mind 
Of large associations, who communed 
With life and reason freely : and received 
Into the compass of his soul, great floods 
Of human passion ; and not seldom felt 
The rising of that greater tide whose swell 
Throughout all history moves : while it exalts 
Not individuals only but as well 
Communities and lands and all our race ? 
So near he dwelt unto that Infinite Heart 
Named Truth, or Love, or Father, that his soul 
Knew nought of mean distinctions : and he lost 
All littleness of judgment, and sustained 
The burden of the wisdom of his Lord. 
Great was his daily talk, his common speech, 
His natural style. Full few of all he blessed 
Knew how he blessed, or turned to give him 

thanks. 
Yet still he walked with all the thronging crowd, 



HENRY WARD BEECH ER. 267 

Large hearted to the last. Still warm and free 

In sympathy and aid. Still wise in trust 

And confidence towards all : refusing not 

His bosom even to darts and envious stabs. 

Thus careless of himself, he cast his lot 

Amid the swaying crowd : there, there to know 

The selfishness of men ; and bear the slurs 

Of littleness and hate. Nor, less than these, 

To share the great contagion ; and the stain 

Of man's abomination. Thus to die 

In seeing in all men dead to all things pure. 

And, aye by dying, at the last to win 

Association with the worst ; and thence 

(O crown of glory incorruptible) 

To touch — to wake the dead : stirred by the shock 

Of his tremendous Passion — thrilled at last 

By moral tidings ; and responsive made 

To that high message of the Eternal Love, 

That so the last and least might feel '' the Cross." 

Thus swelled this wondrous life : like some strange 

seed 
Hid in the soiled earth. Warm sprouts of life 
And feeling there took root ; and, hid to men, 
His growing soul found in the general mind 
The sacred springs of life. Thence, thence he lived, 



268 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Through sympathy with all ; and drew his strength 
From common sources : till, at last, his heart 
Encompassing the Hopes of all this Land, 
Throbbed with its life and suffered with its wound 
And cried with its own Cry ; and did not lack 
That healing wherewith it shall yet be healed. 
Love was his theme ; and liberty through love, 
And righteousness through all. None other word 
Could he have uttered ; for he did not speak 
According to his will, but at the urge 
Of deeper forces. What he gave he was, 
And what he uttered was the life he shared : 
Nor shall his teaching fail nor future years 
Forget his needful words. Life in the pangs 
And sorrows of this man (far less than He 
Whose very blood is life to all Mankind) 
Some hearts have found and many hearts shall find. 
For, whosoever lives not to himself 
But to the general good, and, yielding all, 
Dies and becomes that other whom he loves, 
Wins, by such sacrifice, this good ; that thence 
Neither can wholly die while either lives. 

America ! Believe this man possessed 
Most greatly all thou art ; and cast himself, 



HENRY WARD BEECHER. 269 

His strength, force, wisdom, goodness, utmost love 
Into Thy life : became, in truth, Thyself ; 
Aye, this United States — this latest word 
And utterance of the Heart of the great Love, 
If such it be — or Heaven ordain it such ! 

O clearly is it known that all our times 

And ages, stammering, strive to speak aright 

Through the perfection of their social life, 

Their politics, their art and all their works 

That absolute and spirit-thrilling word 

The everlasting Heart of the true Christ. 

Him to declare the nations labor yet 

Travailing in pain and agony. Such work 

Increases sorrow : but the fruit thereof 

Is that undying wisdom won through death. 

And our great Brother walked not unaware 

Of these deep meanings. Unto him his life 

Was something strange, unfathomed : but not 

thence 
Too precious to be cast into the deep 
And buried up like leaven amid this mass. 
For this wide world to him was sacred still 
Above all human thought. Nothing he sav/ 
In politics or art or social aim 



270 POETICAL SERMONS. 

But 't was the Eternal's Word, like Milton's beast, 

Still " pawing to get free his hinder parts." 

Deeply he suffered the unspeakable sight 

And Vision of Eternity. His soul 

Took sure impressions of the Eternal Truth : 

And all our stirring time, with all its arts 

And knowledges, and science was to him, 

One veritable Voice : announcing still 

God present in this age ! 

O ye whose eyes 
Beheld him, as he travelled every day 
About our streets, saw you not in his mien 
Something suggesting to the casual glance 
Fullness of spirit, freedom in the truth, 
And confidence unquenched in life and man ? 
'T was thus he walked with Christ : for even Him 
He recognized as Master of these States 
And natural head of wisdom for the world. 
None else he took for standard or for guide 
Save that sure Word of Goodness and of Love 
Who used to walk in blessed Galilee : 
But now extends his journeys in the world 
To undiscovered lands and times remote. 
'Till he shall come, in fulness of the Truth 
And this world's rising wisdom, to be seen 



HENRY WARD BEECH ER. 2/1 

As veritably present throughout time, 

One way, one truth, one life, which every soul 

Must come to and confess — and yet beyond, 

Of all, the national, international Soul ! 

Unfailing Passionist ! Great Master Heart 

That swayed'st our human souls from every side, 

Exalting us to heights that seemed too high, 

Save that 'twas glory there to share thy joy ; 

And then immersing all our lives with thine 

In profound sympathy with human ills — 

O, who like thee hast joined us every way 

With this great People : making us no more 

A body of Believers, set apart 

To uphold an institution or a creed 

Or congregational policy ; but, more. 

To lead this mighty Nation ! To affirm 

Its spiritual convictions and respond 

To its unceasing cries, with bounteous gifts 

Of moral Judgment, Wisdom and Belief. 

To this thy soul was destined ; not, in truth. 

By natural hope or dream, but by the height 

And richness of its own interior being. 

So thou couldst not escape thy destiny, 

Which was to stand and utter to these States 

Supremest judgments. These indeed became 



272 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Issues of mightiest moment ; and men's hearts 

Waited on thine with palpitations loud 

'Till Plymouth spoke and all the land was eased. 

And now no more — no more ! Now hearts that long 

Sharing a thousand thoughts they dare not speak 

Sit wrapt in silence ; and forget to ask 

Whence he had guidance, and what Power espoused 

Goodness and wisdom and strange light in him. 

Great love it was : and that shall guide us yet 

Even while we utter once again to all 

His ancient judgments on the passing time. 

O, Lover of the World and all Mankind, 

The far Hungarian mountains, sealed with ice, 

Knew once thy breath ; when from their ravaged 

vales 
Holiest Kossuth passed forth, and gained these 

shores, 
Welcomed by thee. Thee, too, the struggling tribes 
Of Africa and Asia, may recall — 
Yea, and of Madagascar : for thy Voice 
Not seldom interposed against the schemes 
Of France and England — Christian nations now. 
Though weakened by old selfishness. And thee 
The uprisen protestants of France may praise, 
Who, to renow^ned Pere Hyacinth sent free 



HENRY WARD BEE CHER. 273 

And proud congratulations. Thee as well 

The Liberators of the allied States 

Of Europe know. Thee great Castellar heard 

And free Mazzini — one sublime, true soul 

Whose dream was as the dream of all his time, 

And whose great yearning spirit shall not fail 

From some calm sphere of final Truth and Peace 

To know the consummation of his works. 

With these thy soul was linked. Yea, all of these 

Yearned westward toward the streaming light 

divine 
Of liberty, and heard a Voice that cried : 
"Brothers, we know your tears and share your 

hopes, 
And are, with you, in mightiest struggle joined. 
For 'gainst the power of priestcraft, and the bulk 
Of ancient institutions, striving yet, 
In Christ's dear name we cry to all mankind : 
Freedom is yours, and life from Christ's own hand. 
Not from the church whose dreams are unfulfilled." 
But, while he spoke his inmost soul was roused 
At evils nearer home. Then did his cry 
Rend the entire Heavens as he beheld 
The abominable thing that men had done 
In these beloved States. Then was his soul 



274 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Pierced by that act of darkness which affirmed 
The rights of masters to their fleeing slaves, 
And reckoned criminal the acting forth 
Of Christ's eternal law. 

" Woe ! Woe ! Aye, Woe 
To the wide land if such as these prevail," 
Thus cried he ; but the unlistening people slept, 
And the whole Nation suffered to its shores. 
How blessed then was war ! How dear was strife. 
All needful sorrow and great bleeding wounds, 
Night fastings and repentance and hot tears. 
If sin be cherished shall not grief be hoped ? 
War eased its soul : and rebaptized to God 
Our Nation gazed, to see its banner float 
Unstained as heaven and beautiful as dawn. 
But other woes remained, and Beecher's heart, 
Christ-roused against the strange, abhorrent might 
Of gambling caucuses and liquor leagues 
And " laws " that make abomination " trade," 
Struggled not vainly to arouse the mind 
And public conscience of the land. His speech 
On themes like these was wise ; and ever fit 
Broadly to meet the issues now involved ; 
And deeply did he feel them. Deeply, too, 
He loved — O not some individual scheme 



HENRY WARD BEECH ER. 275 

Of Prohibition — but man's soul redeemed ; 

Not by temptations feared but Truth espoused 

In pure unbounded love of God and Man. 

Such was his faith, such was his dream. By this 

He lived ; but lived not with a weakening faith 

In human nature. Nay ! His spirit thrilled 

To mightiest affirmations and renounced 

The abhorred doctrine of exclusive rights ; 

And claimed for each alike unbounded share 

In whatsoever may be dreamed or loved. 

Friend, he believed in Christ ! Whose doctrine is 

Belief in man as Man because of Love — 

God, whose great Nature hath espoused the least 

Who wanders forth in weariness and shame. 

Thus, thus he preached and thus he worshipped 

Christ, 
Whose worship is — free service to mankind. 
Unbounded love and absolute belief 
And Joy and Hope and Wisdom shared with all. 
Nought less than this made glorious all that life 
Astonishing ; which here he shared with all. 
For even the weakest of us wept with joy 
Pondering upon the blessing won through him. 
And now we know his doctrine. Now we know 
That Jesus lives in all men ; and that each 



276 POETICAL SERMONS. .. 

Hath rights from heaven through universal grace. 

The heart of this Republic is the Heart 

That throbbed on Calvary 'till the darkness broke, 

Then ceased — to beat forever through all worlds. 

Amid all lives, within all living things. 

And urge the transformation of thetn all. 

Hereafter through the world there is a change ; 

Man lives by universal sympathies, 

Not special inspirations. Man is man 

Because of all who live : and through his league 

With weakest souls he wins new strength to save, 

Comfort and strengthen all. There reigns no 

more 
Authority — whose thunder yet makes pale 
The millions of the earth. There reigns no more 
Prerogative — whose meaning is o'erwhelmed 
In simple and eternal Love. There reigns 
Nought of Distinction, Caste or family 
Save one — The Human Race, whose issue is 
The evolution of the sons of God. 
It is enough. If Christ be for mankind 
Who shall not serve ? Who shall not kneel and bow 
To weakness and to ignorance ? What voice 
Shall speak in pride or hatred or contempt ? 
It is enough. There yet remains for man 



HENRY WARD BEECHER. 2/7 

Authority in Jesus — but, beyond, 

None till the Heavens and earth are joined in 



peace 



The quiet and beloved Day hath closed. 

Mildly and calmly now from the full Vault 

Beauty and peace and sanctity and light 

Are showered down and shed on the freed world. 

The o'erwearied flowers uplift themselves, and 

drain 
The invisible moisture of the atmosphere 
Which is their food. The all-comprehending oaks 
And gracious elms stand silent : but refreshed 
With unseen dew ; and, 'mid their branched 

boughs, 
The unperceived but ever blessed wind 
Takes up again its gracious residence. 
And now it is the evening of the day 
And, in the factories of the mighty Town, 
The engines stop : and the unceasing whirl 
Of many shafts and heavy-banded wheels 
Is slackened ; and the working girls and men 
Troop forth into the streets and thread their ways 
Through mighty and unending human throngs. 
All these have passed away before the night. 
Sovereign and high and absolute, through heaven 



2/8 POETICAL SERMONS. 

Reigning alone, pours through ten thousand stars 
The essential secret of its own pure will ; 
Which first by Abram, on wide Mamre's plain 
Was understood : what time the astonished Shiek 
Became aware of Nature's life and God's. 
And now what shall I say ? The day and night, 
This fervid present world with all its woes — 
Yea, and the immaculate and eternal spheres 
Are one in love ; and live by that sole law — 
Blessed in all — which was exposed for man 
By that dear Master of all gentle souls, 
Jesus — the Son of God ; whose present Truth 
Hath, through our Hero's life, redeemed our own. 

1888, 

THE END. 



\ H3I 89 



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